After I fell in love with All The Bright Places earlier this year, I wanted to devour everything Jennifer Niven's ever written. Which, aside from some books aimed at a much younger audience than me, basically equates to just this book. I first bought this after seeing it recommended for one of the Zoella Autumn book clubs (what even happened to those?!), and it sat on my shelf unloved for a couple of years.
Libby Strout is known as 'America's fattest teen'. Dealing with her mum's death, Libby gained a lot of weight, forcing her to become housebound. Now however, she's able to go back to school after shedding some of it. She's filled with nerves about the prejudice surrounding her size that she knows other students will have, but she's determined.
Jack Masselin on the other hand looks like he has everything made for him: popular, good looking, and dating the hottest girl in the school. On the inside however, things are crumbling. Jack's suffering from a neurological condition that he's determined to keep a secret from everyone which causes him to be unable to recognise faces. He finds ways to remember who is who (their voice, or things like memorising hair colour etc), and pretty much everyone is duped.
When one of the cruel tricks Jack's friends have been playing on Libby doesn't quite go to plan, Libby and Jack end up having to do counselling and volunteering together. The pair realise that not everything is the way it looks on the outside, and they might have more in common than they think.
I really enjoyed this book. It's possibly the first YA fiction I've read that has a female main character who is fat, and who isn't used as part of a joke in any way. She's not the best friend of someone with a love interest, or the younger sister, or the butt of the joke, or someone whose femininity has been stripped away. It's shocking and really sad that I can't think of a single book I read as an actual young adult that had a character like Libby in it, and I'm glad that this book is out there.
Niven also deals with mental health and neurological illness in a very profound way in the book. I think it's well with mentioning that she did a lot of research into Jack's illness, and had the book read through by someone who suffers with the same thing before it was published. The narrative looks at how both teens struggle with their mental health, and how this manifests itself in different ways, including panic attacks and anxiety.
My one gripe is that it follows my least favourite trope of 'popular guy will turn his back on friends and popularity to date unpopular girl' that pervades so much YA fiction. It's such a lovely idea, but teens are selfish and scared of being rejected and outcast (which is totally okay - teenage years are rough), and it just really doesn't happen. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I really think there's an element of wishful thinking in this whole idea.
I read this back in 2016, and I remember really liking it. It was heartwarming, and I absolutely was invested in both Jack and Libby's lives.
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