It took me an (embarrassing) entire year to finish this book. I found it difficult to read at times because it was very character-arc heavy and not as much plot. The writing was… relatable and certainly something I would expect in a YA book. Sometimes it seemed a little bit millennial-ly in some terms of phrase but over all I quite enjoyed the simple writing style and language. Originally I would have giving this book 3⭐️ because it didn’t hook me as much as it could’ve (I mean it took me a year to read it) but the message was important. This is one of the rare instances where a quote has stuck with me (“You are wanted”) and imo that just shows how much of an impacts this story has. Despite all the negative things I have said in this review I think this is a book everyone should read at least once in their life, because it is true: you are wanted.

I loved All the Bright Places, and was intrigued by Holding Up the Universe (featuring a severly face-blind and a overweight main character). Overall, it was an okay story that focused a lot on both protagonists struggling with their disease/health problems and their families, but it was also a bit of a superficial high school drama with a love story that had 0 chemistry.

This is a very lovely book. Two POVs from teens with very different problems whose lives collide and then intertwine. A very cute love story. I've never before read a book from the perspective of someone with face-blindness and that, together with the contrast to Libby's POV, is what really stands out about this book. I love Libby's story too, I especially love Libby's story and her development makes me very happy, but Jack's POV is something new in a way that I didn't expect but might want to see more of now, and the combination of the two really drives the point home.

Ist ein gutes Buch, welches mal nicht die typischen Highschool Character hat. Ich finde es toll, dass es in 2 Sichten geschrieben wurde. Die Kapitel waren teilweise nur eine halbe Seite lang. Es ist etwas, dass man mögen muss um das Buch zu lesen. In diesem Fall mochte ich es. Ich habe 2 Sterne abgezogen, weil ich lange gebraucht habe für das Buch und es mich nicht so krass gecatched hat. Außerdem hatte ich das Gefühl, dass es sich am Anfang sehr im Kreis dreht. Es ist sehr slowburn... entweder man mag es oder nicht. Meiner Meinung nach hätte man die Beziehung etwas früher starten können, aber gleichzeitig hat es auch gepasst. Ich habe dabei sehr gemischte Gefühle.

Jennifer Niven’s books and I will never be friends. I didn’t like All The Bright Places but I hoped this one would be better. This one started good, but then I got quickly annoyed, therefore 1,5 stars. My long list of things I didn’t like: - Both main characters, but let’s start with Libby. She used to be America’s fattest teen, then lost weight and started going to school again at the beginning of the book. Her train of thoughts are absolutely irrational! “Are you kidding? He has every reason to kick my ass. If I was him, I’d never let you near me.” But all I hear is I just want to be near you, Libby Strout. I want to kiss your lips right off you face. Jack says, “He’s just protective, and he should be, especially after what I did to you. That’s how I’d be if I ever have a daughter.” But what I hear is I will always be protective of you. I will always look after you and our daughter, the one we’re going to have together after we get married and I am loving you forever. You’re going a bit far, aren’t you, girl? The problem is that this is how she thinks about every boy who’s talking to her. Another example: “Have you ever been to Scandinavia? […] You should go sometime.” But all I hear is Maybe I’ll take you there. Maybe we’ll go back and I’ll show you where I’m from and you can meet my relatives and I will love you forever. In which world is suggesting a travel destination an invitation to meet someone’s parents? Or a love declaration? - Jack has face blindness but doesn’t tell anyone. Instead of telling people about it to let them know he faces a lot of problems this way. He tells others at the end of the book in an incredibly stupid situation and it feels rushed. - Both characters are absolutely one dimensional. She constantly talks about her weight and her being overweight is the only thing about her. Just like Jack’s face blindness, as well as his arrogance, is all you know about him. There’s also no chemistry between them. And still, love ‘cures it all’. He doesn’t recognise anyone’s face except for Libby’s!! Obviously, love cures brain disorders! The only reason they're in love is because they both have problems and are 'different from the others'. He tells himself he doesn't care about her weight, yet it is something he constantly talks about. - The constant use of words like ‘pussy’ to insult someone. As well as the scene in which Jack complains about getting beat up by a girl: "How about we let my punishment be that the entire school saw a girl kick my ass?" Would you have preferred getting punched in the face by a boy? DUDE YOU ASSAULTED HER - ‘Fat Girl Rodeo’: “You go up to some fat girl and you throw yourself around her like you’re riding a bull.” Ew. No, just no. This was just terrible.

What is it with YA romance authors giving their mcs seemingly random flaws/illnesses/issues just to create drama? The protagonists have literally no chemistry. I didn't like any of the characters (apart from Jack's little brother maybe), but these two were the worst. Haaaated them. This is not a body positive book. Libby's body image revolves entirely around finding a boy who she will "sex the rest of this weight right off" with. Yikes.

Also das dieses Buch so gut sein wird und mir soo gut gefällt hätte ich nie gedacht ! Es war so schön und so real und authentisch. Es hat die ernsten Themen super gespiegelt und ich hab mich so oft selber darin erkannt. Es war wirklich wieder ein ganz anderes Lese gefühl und erlebnis. Ein buch was wieder sehr gut wiedergespiegelt hat warum ich so gerne lese. Ich kann es wirklich nur empfehlen !

complete review: http://isabellsbooks.blogspot.de/ The book consists out of very short chapters, which are often only a page long and wherefore it reads itself very easily and quickly. I really enjoyed that because it let me fly through it in a way that I never do when there are long chapters. There's just always this motivation to read another page and another and another, while long chapters rather prevent my reading motivation. So I really liked that. Since I am very afraid of spoilers, I read nothing about the book before I read it. Now that I've read it, I would actually really advise you to read the back of the book beforehand because it might help you to determine whether you want to read about these topics or not. I just bought it because I heard great stuff about it, which is why I was quite surprised to find out what it's actually about. The two main topics it deals with are obesity and prosopagnosia. Don't worry if you don't know what the latter means, I think most people don't. It's face blindness, which gets explained quite beautifully throughout the book. I never heard of that illness before and found it very interesting to get to know more about it. That rare illness and the quite unusual weight problem made the two protagonists special and unique because they had to deal with things that I never read about. There were a lot of geeky references in this book - mostly in the beginning. I loved that very much and can recommend the book especially to Supernatural fans, since those references came up quite often throughout the whole book. I really admired the protagonist Libby for her strong character and loved how her self-esteem was portrayed. She felt very realistic to me because of all her insecurities. It was very heartwarming to read about Jack's strong love and wish to protect his little brother. I could very much relate to that and liked that the book spend some beautiful scenes on this bond. Libby's past, especially concerning her mother, was really touching and made me emotional. Unfortunately, the book didn't really have an actual plot. It's just about a few days in the lives of two people in which nothing significant actually happens. It's much more about some small steps and developments in the lives of two teenagers who have both some rather unusual problems. It's definitely very beautifully written and a nice read to pass the time, but nothing groundbreaking that will stay with me forever. The book does have an important and beautiful message but after glimpsing at the three sentences of the back of the book before I bought it, I expected so much more of that self-encouraging, self-loving message than there was actually in the book. The issues of the two protagonists will probably stay with me because of their rareness and unusuality but not really their story, which was unfortunately rather unspectacular. What they got was a realistic story for their age but also nothing special at all. The story was mostly set in school, at home or at parties.. and that also kept it from being an exceptional book for me. I really didn't need the lovestory in this book. I found that to be extremely unnecessary. It also gave the "You are wanted." message the unpleasant undertone of "You are wanted if a boy is attracted to you.", while I would have much rather had it to be "You are wanted because you are whole just the way you are.", if that makes any sense. I think that the lovestory needed way too much time in the story and held the characters back from focussing on themselves and their process to self-acceptance. So in general, I had just hoped that the book would focus more on selflove and body positivity than it actually did. You should rather lower your expectations there because than you could actually be pleased with the amount of it that's actually in the book. Another problem that I had with the book was, that it didn't make me feel anything - except for what I mentioned earlier about Libby's mum. The lovestory didn't work for me, there was no chemistry, no spark, nothing that made me "ship" them. I felt that there was an understanding between them, a connection, but I would have much rather had them support each other as friends than them being more than that. There was a different issue that I had, which confused me very often throughout the book. There were a few friends of Libby's that just suddenly appeared without further introduction and I couldn't quite understand in what relation they were to Libby. I enjoyed the lists that mostly appeared in Jack's chapters. I always enjoy it when there's a different writing style in a book.. that just makes a book fresher for me. Especially the way in which Jack's illness was portrayed was beautifully written. As the reader I also didn't know who any of the people around Jack were and had to discover them through his eyes, through his way of identifying them. I really found that to be a great way to help the reader understand a little what that must feel like. Can I recommend this book to you? Yes, I would recommend it to you as a quick read which is a bit more special than other quick reads because of its unusual characters. But I would suggest you to lower your expectations and rather expect a mediocre book that you wouldn't miss if you hadn't read it. MY BOOKRATING I award this book with 3 out of 5 stars.

Ein unglaublich bedeutungsschweres Buch, das einen zu Tränen rührt! Der Schreibstil der Autorin hat mir wirklich gut gefallen. Er wirkte auf mich sehr gefühlvoll und emotional und war dabei außerdem sehr angenehm zu lesenDas Buch ist abwechselnd aus Jack und Libbys Sicht geschrieben, was einem einen guten Einblick in die Gefühlswelt der beiden ermöglicht.Unterbrochen wir die eigentliche Geschichte dabei ab in zu durch Listen und Rückblicke aus der Vergangenheit, was teilweise sehr spannend war, die Geschichte aber auch etwas aufgelockert hat. Jack war meiner Meinung nach ein sehr interessanter Charakter, über dessen Krankheit ich zum ersten Mal gehört habe. Diese Stelle ich mir ziemlich schrecklich vor, was durch seine sehr tiefgründig erzählen Kapitel nur noch verstärkt wurde. Davon abgesehen war er ein sehr sympathischer, individueller und interessanter Charakter.Genauso wie Libby. Libby war mir von der ersten Seite an sehr sympathisch weil man sich meiner Meinung nach sehr gut mit ihr identifizieren kann, auch wenn man nicht das gleich "Problem" - was in dem Buch abgesehen von den gesundheitlichen Gründen nicht zum Problem gemacht wurde, Body Positivity wird hier zum Glück ganz groß geschrieben - wie sie hat. Sie ist unglaublich stark, selbstbewusst und absolut bewundernswert. Andere Charaktere haben gut zur Geschichte beigetragen, waren fies, unglaublich nett oder irgendwas dazwischen, ganz lebensecht eben. Das fand ich wirklich super, weil es so authentisch war. Die Geschichte an sich war sehr tiefgründig, emotional und absolut mitreißend. Die Probleme, die sich Libby und Jack in den Weg gestellt haben, haben mich wirklich tief getroffen. Ich konnte sehr gut mit ihnen mitfühlen, habe mitgelitten, habe mich mit ihnen geärgert geweint, aber auch gelacht.Die Handlung war übrigens auch sehr interessant und spannend, was einen praktisch dazu gezwungen hat, weiterzulesen. Man konnte gar nicht mehr aufhören. Alles in allem, war "Holding Up the Universe" eines der besten Bücher, die ich dieses Jahr gelesen habe,weshalb es die 5 Sterne absolut verdient hat.