Holding Up the Universe Posted on December 15, 2021March 13, 2025 By Brooke Bertram I remember the first time I ever read Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven. I had grown to admire Niven after she released All the Bright Places, and so when I found out that she was releasing a new novel, I was ecstatic. I wasn’t quite sure what I was expecting at the time, but I knew that whatever she wrote I would love – and I did. Holding Up the Universe is about a girl named Libby and a boy named Jack. Libby, at just the age of ten years old, loses her mother unexpectedly. Because of this, she becomes depressed and ends up using food as a way to cope with her loss. After a while of this coping mechanism, Libby becomes home-bound and ends up having to be home-schooled. This then turns into Libby having to be cut out of her home. This moment is videotaped and posted to the internet where she earns the title, “America’s Fattest Teen.” Jack Masselin has something different going on. In the novel, we find out that he has prosopagnosia – the inability to recognize people’s faces. We find out that he has never actually been diagnosed so no one actually knows that he has it. I don’t want to spoil the story, but Jack and Libby do end up crossing paths, and the both of them see each other for who they really are. I think this novel can really fit into the mission of The Broken Plate. This book focuses on two characters who feel as though there is no one that will ever understand them because of these things they are dealing with. They at times can feel unwanted or unheard. What Holding Up the Universe and The Broken Plate have in common is this – they both strive to realize how important it is to hear these voices and to let them know that we want them to be heard. The Broken Plate Recommends
The Broken Plate Recommends Song of Solomon Posted on December 5, 2021March 13, 2025 The Broken Plate is a literary magazine that looks into the fragility of human lives and how, over time, people grow and pick these pieces up to become stronger than before. This idea of slowly growing and developing over time is a common theme in many novels, and Song of Solomon by Toni… Read More
The Broken Plate Recommends Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley Ford – an Interview Posted on December 15, 2021March 13, 2025 It was a combination of things that led Ashley C Ford to choose Ball State for college. “I chose Ball State partly because I thought it was beautiful, partly because it felt far enough away from my family that I could sort of be whoever I wanted but not so… Read More
The Broken Plate Recommends Heavy: an American Memoir Posted on December 5, 2021March 13, 2025 The Broken Plate is a literary magazine that seeks to uplift and talk about voices that often go unrepresented.. We want to draw attention to these voices and the people behind them as well as the lives that have shaped them. In Heavy: an American Memoir, Kiese Laymon talks about… Read More