Jack arranges a meeting with a researcher during which he learns that he does have a severe case of face-blindness. When Libby and Jack talk in person, Libby encourages him to research his disorder and consider getting tested. He tells her that he did not want to hurt her, but also wanted to put an end to the game. He shares with her that he has prosopagnosia. Later that day, Libby finds the letter that Jack wrote to her. Both are assigned to attend counseling in the school’s Conversation Circle. Jack is shocked when Libby pushes him off and punches him in the face hard enough to split his lip and knock him to the floor. He manages to stuff a letter he has written to her into her backpack. During lunch the following day, he grabs Libby and holds onto her. When Kam announces that Libby is the “prize” (71) in the game he calls the “Fat Girl Rodeo” (48) Jack decides to put an end to the game. Even though Kam is Jack’s best friend, Jack thinks that Kam’s behavior is cruel. He secretly hopes that Libby will catch Kam. Jack notices Libby because she is so fast and graceful despite her weight. Libby is so angry that she runs after Dave “Kam” Kaminski, the boy who made Iris cry. Iris is crying because she has been the object of a cruel game some of the boys are playing.
On her first day of school, Libby meets Iris Engelbrecht, a girl who is almost as big as Libby is. She is still haunted by the fear of the unknown and the fear that she will die suddenly. She is determined to live life to its fullest because there was a point in her life that she feared she would never live long enough to have a life. She has undergone therapy, counseling, and has lost 302 pounds. Libby is back in school in person for the first time since she was rescued from her house. They pass the story back and forth from that point. Jack’s narration takes up at the point in time when Libby’s end. Libby and Jack’s stories follow the same timeline with Libby narrating the opening first-person section of the book. When Jack and Libby’s paths cross, they strike up a friendship that encourages both to be more accepting of their faults and the faults of others. He fears he will fall prey to bullying and cruelty if his weakness is discovered. Jack tries to keep a secret that he has prosopagnosia, or face-blindness, a condition that makes him unable to recognize faces. It is Libby’s first year back in school after the stress of the death of her mother combined with bullying at school caused her to gain so much weight she had to be rescued from her house. In the teen romance Holding up the Universe by Jennifer Niven, Libby Strout and Jack Masselin tell parallel stories of the challenges teens face in day-to-day life, especially if they have any characteristics that mark them as different. Knopf Books for Young Readers, October 4, 2016. The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Niven, Jennifer.
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