Opening
These chapters track two intersecting orbits: Libby Strout fights to control a cruel narrative about her body while Jack Masselin begins to see her—and himself—more clearly. Flashbacks expose the root of Libby’s pain, present-tense confrontations reveal who steps up and who looks away, and small moments of joy and loyalty hint at the connection forming between them.
What Happens
Chapter 16: Libby Strout is fat.
In the third-floor girls’ bathroom after school, Libby uncaps a Sharpie and writes on the stall wall the same insults she heard in gym: “Libby Strout is fat,” “Fat and ugly,” “No one will ever love her.” She wants to strike first, to own the worst words so no one else can. The bathroom becomes a battleground where she tries to seize control of her story and armor herself against Caroline Lushamp and friends.
Then Libby adds the line that hurts most: “Libby Strout is a liar.” She knows she isn’t the unbothered girl she pretends to be; the words cut. The moment spotlights her fraught relationship with Self-Acceptance and Body Image: she performs indifference to survive, even as the cruelty sinks in.
Chapter 17: The Girl Who Can Fly
From the bleachers, Jack watches his friend Dave Kaminski run laps. A girl he calls “enormous” strides out of school and heads straight for Dave. He bolts, laughing; she explodes after him with startling speed. Jack’s friend Seth howls, but Jack can’t look away—he’s impressed. When he shouts “Run!” he realizes he’s cheering for her.
The girl—Libby—clears a fence, nearly catches Dave, and is stopped only by a passing truck. On her way back across the field, she locks eyes with Jack, fury blazing. For Jack, the moment cracks open his reflexive judgment. For a beat, he practices Seeing Beyond Appearances, recognizing not a stereotype but a determined athlete.
Chapter 18: Six Years Earlier
A flashback to the elementary school playground reveals the origin of Libby’s shame. Moses Hunt blocks her path, calls her “Flabby Stout,” and says no one will ever love her because she’s fat. Libby, who never thought of herself as fat, reels at the sudden, senseless targeting. She’s told she’s too heavy for the jungle gym; the rules of the world shift under her feet.
Then Moses delivers the cruelest blow: “You probably killed your mom by sitting on her.” Hatred hits Libby full force for the first time. She glances toward Bailey Bishop on the swings, carefree and unaware, and feels herself alone in a crowd—a first deep lesson in Loneliness and Isolation. The memory hardwires a defense system Libby still uses.
Chapter 19: We Can’t Fight Another Person’s Battles
Back in the present, Libby leaves the bathroom and checks on a crying classmate, Iris Engelbrecht. Iris says Kaminski grabbed her and wouldn’t let go. Libby pushes to report him to the principal, but Iris refuses; she doesn’t want the incident to define her year or invite more attention. The cost of speaking up feels too high.
Later, in the park with her counselor-friend Rachel Mendes, Libby vents that people only see her size. They spin and twirl—a ritual she shared with her mom—until the world blurs and joy breaks through. Libby remembers a caged bear that once stood here and muses it was likely shot, not relocated: a stark metaphor for how society “solves” what it fears by destroying it rather than understanding.
Chapter 20: Self-Defensive Shittiness
At Masselin’s Toys, Jack leaves a mocking voicemail for Kaminski, who’s in hiding after the field chase. His dad confronts him for dropping advanced chemistry—the class taught by Monica Chapman, Dad’s girlfriend—while Dad is still married to Jack’s mom. The conversation knots with secrets Jack can’t say out loud; he just needs to escape.
At home, Jack finds his younger brother, Dusty Masselin, crushed. Dusty’s purse is slashed and tagged with a slur. Jack explains his theory of “self-defensive shittiness”: people lash out first to protect themselves. Dusty quietly asks Jack to “not be shitty,” and Jack promises he never will be—to him. When Dusty says he’s better off without the purse, Jack offers to build anything. Dusty asks for a Lego robot friend, exposing aching loneliness that floors Jack.
Character Development
The section peels back defenses. Libby swings between self-protection and bold action; Jack’s mask of cool fractures to reveal loyalty and moral clarity; Dusty’s gentleness makes the stakes of cruelty unmistakable.
- Libby Strout: Turns insults into self-graffiti to control the narrative, then sprints across a field to defend someone else. The flashback explains her vigilance; the twirling shows she still chooses joy.
- Jack Masselin: Sees beyond first impressions during the chase, refuses to excuse Kaminski, and mothers-hens Dusty. His family’s secrets sharpen his empathy and his sense of right and wrong.
- Dusty Masselin: Faces gender-policing and isolation. His request for a robot “friend” crystallizes how bullying erodes connection.
- Iris Engelbrecht: Makes a hard calculation about speaking up, illustrating how fear of social fallout silences victims.
Themes & Symbols
Seeing beyond appearances arrives in a single shouted “Run!” that reframes Jack’s gaze. He recognizes power and will in Libby, not just size. In contrast, the bathroom wall and the playground memory map how surface-level judgments get carved into a person until they start writing the judgments themselves.
Loneliness and isolation thread through Iris’s refusal to report, Dusty’s robot request, and Libby’s memory of hatred arriving out of nowhere. Self-acceptance and body image surface in Libby’s “own the insult before it owns me” strategy—a coping mechanism that protects in the moment but deepens the wound over time. Symbols reinforce these tensions: Dusty’s vandalized purse stands for the price of defying gender norms; twirling is freedom reclaimed; the “relocated” bear is the harsh truth that systems often eliminate what they fear instead of understanding it.
Key Quotes
“Libby Strout is fat.”
On the stall wall, the insult becomes ritual—a way for Libby to claim authorship of the narrative. It’s power at a cost, because repeating the words also keeps them alive inside her.
“Libby Strout is a liar.”
This is the gut punch. Libby names the gap between her brave face and real pain, admitting that pretending not to care is itself a performance she can’t sustain.
“Run!”
Jack cheers for Libby, not Kaminski. The single word marks the moment he sees her force and refuses the easy laugh, a pivot from stereotype to respect.
“You probably killed your mom by sitting on her.”
Moses’s cruelty fuses grief to shame, creating a formative trauma. The line explains how deeply Libby’s defenses root and why casual comments later slice so sharply.
“Self-defensive shittiness.”
Jack’s theory reframes cruelty as fear-based preemption. It doesn’t excuse harm; it clarifies motive, nudging the story toward empathy without letting bullies off the hook.
“Don’t be shitty.”
Dusty’s request distills moral complexity into a simple rule. Jack’s promise becomes a personal ethic, especially toward the person who needs him most.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters align two arcs heading toward connection. Libby’s bathroom wall and playground memory explain the ferocity and the tenderness she brings to the field chase and to Iris. Jack’s complicated home life and fierce care for Dusty show a boy ready to protect, not just perform. Together, the episodes establish bullying as both external assault and internal echo, trace how people survive it, and set the stage for Jack and Libby to recognize in each other what they most need: someone who sees the person, not the stereotype.