What This Theme Explores
Loneliness and Isolation in Holding Up the Universe examines what happens when difference—whether visible or invisible—turns into a barrier between a person and the world. For Libby Strout, grief and public scrutiny lock her in a private exile; for Jack Masselin, prosopagnosia makes every room a crowd of strangers, even at home. The novel asks how secrecy, shame, and stigma deepen isolation, and whether being truly seen by another person can dismantle it. Ultimately, it probes the courage it takes to reveal one’s most vulnerable self and the transformative empathy that can meet that revelation.
How It Develops
At the outset, both teens move through life as if sealed behind glass. Libby returns to school after years at home, haunted by the spectacle of her rescue and the label “America’s Fattest Teen,” certain that no one will see past her body or her past; she admits she “missed” middle school and never had a real friend, encapsulating a childhood lived on the margins (Chapter 1-5 Summary). Jack, meanwhile, perfects a glossy persona to hide his face blindness, performing confidence so no one notices how lost he is. Their first explosive confrontation isn’t just a plot incident—it’s two isolated people colliding, each protecting an exposed nerve.
In the middle stretch, forced proximity—detentions, counseling, community service—turns wary coexistence into recognition. Libby’s loneliness is sharpened by bullying, yet she tentatively builds a circle with Bailey, Jayvee, and Iris, testing the possibility of belonging. Jack’s isolation tightens after he fails to recognize his own brother, a mistake that exposes how his condition cuts him off from the people he loves most (Chapter 56-60 Summary). Crucially, he entrusts his secret to Libby, and her willingness to hold it without judgment becomes the novel’s first sturdy bridge out of solitude.
By the end, connection doesn’t erase difference—it reframes it. Jack tells his family the truth, sacrificing the armor that once kept him safe but alone. Libby refuses the terms of her exile, publicly claiming space and community on her own terms by creating an inclusive dance group. Their bond models a cure for isolation that isn’t conformity but mutual, candid acceptance.
Key Examples
The novel’s turning points crystallize how isolation is built—and how it can be undone.
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Jack’s opening confession. His private, matter-of-fact account of prosopagnosia reframes his bravado as survival. Naming the condition and its daily costs allows readers to feel the profound dislocation that makes him act out and hold back at once.
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Libby’s self-vandalism in the bathroom. After a humiliating gym class, Libby writes cruel messages about herself to preempt what others might say, insisting, “This way, there is nothing they can say about me that I haven’t said myself” (Chapter 21-25 Summary). It’s a heartbreaking attempt to seize control of her narrative—an act of self-protection that also reveals how isolation teaches people to turn on themselves first.
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The accidental “kidnapping.” Jack, unable to recognize his brother, Dusty Masselin, tries to take the wrong child home, dramatizing how his condition severs him from intimacy and trust. The incident isn’t just a mistake; it’s a crisis that makes his hidden solitude undeniable to himself.
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The Land Rover conversation to Bloomington. In the safe, liminal space of the car, Jack confesses his prosopagnosia and Libby admits her father’s affair. This reciprocal vulnerability dismantles the walls each has built, showing that being seen begins with the risk of being known.
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Libby’s “YOU ARE WANTED” stand. By wearing a purple bikini in the hallway and handing out her treatise, Libby transforms personal stigma into a communal invitation (Chapter 106-110 Summary). She reframes isolation from a private wound into a shared problem—and offers belonging as the remedy.
Character Connections
Libby Strout’s arc maps a journey from enforced seclusion to chosen visibility. Initially trapped by grief and anxiety—and then by the story the town tells about her—she learns to replace internalized shame with self-authorship. Her public acts are less about provocation than reclamation: she chooses community on her terms, proving that agency is the first step out of isolation.
Jack Masselin embodies the paradox of invisible difference. His “lord of the douche” performance keeps him safe from exposure but also blocks intimacy; he’s liked but not known. With Libby, he practices honesty, and that honesty compels him to extend the truth to his family, trading performative connection for the real thing—even when it’s messy or frightening.
Dusty Masselin’s storyline miniaturizes the theme. A boy who loves dancing and carries a purse, he’s targeted for nonconformity, revealing how early and casually communities exile difference. Jack’s failure to protect and recognize Dusty sharpens Jack’s understanding that isolation harms not just the isolated but those who love them.
Jack’s social circle underscores isolation-as-performance. With Dave Kaminski and Seth Powell, Jack maintains status by hiding. The friendships function as a mirror of his facade: high on banter, low on authenticity—the kind of connection that intensifies loneliness rather than alleviating it.
Symbolic Elements
Libby’s house. The site of her rescue symbolizes grief’s architecture: a structure that shelters but also imprisons. Leaving it and later redefining public space as her own track her shift from containment to participation.
Jack’s basement workshop. This private lab, where he dismantles and rebuilds objects, mirrors his internal work: breaking down the mechanisms of his mask and reassembling a self that can exist without it. It’s solitude that evolves into preparation for connection.
The Land Rover. A moving sanctuary, the car brackets moments when the outside gaze falls away. Its intimacy on the road models how protected spaces—literal or relational—enable the risks that undo isolation.
Contemporary Relevance
In a culture of curated selves, where metrics of visibility masquerade as connection, the novel speaks to the ache of being profoundly alone in public. Libby’s trolling and public shaming echo digital pile-ons; Jack’s neurological difference highlights how many forms of otherness are misread or unseen. The story argues for practices of empathy—listening without fixing, believing without spectacle—and for communities that make space for bodies, minds, and identities outside the norm. Its countercultural claim is simple and urgent: belonging is not granted by perfection but built through mutual, vulnerable attention.
Essential Quote
“Imagine walking into a room full of strangers, people who don’t mean anything to you because you don’t know their names or histories. Then imagine going to school or work or, worse, your own home, where you should know everyone, only the people there look like strangers too.”
This articulation of prosopagnosia reframes isolation as an experiential reality rather than a personality trait, inviting empathy for Jack’s defensive performance. It also translates the novel’s broader theme: loneliness isn’t only being without people; it’s being with people who cannot truly see you—until, finally, someone does.