Libby Strout

Libby Strout is one of the first-person narrators for this novel. She is a junior at Martin Van Buren High school. It has been five years since she attended school in person. When Libby’s mother died suddenly when she was in the fifth-grade, Libby developed a fear of dying and suffered panic attacks whenever she tried to leave the house. Additionally, she had been bullied by Moses Hunt, a fellow student, who told her she was fat and she would never be loved.

Libby began eating to fill the emptiness she felt as a result of the death of her mother. Even though her father tried to contain her eating and make her follow diets, she hid food in her bedroom. She gained weight until she weighed 653 pounds. She was homebound for just more than five months because she was too large to fit through the...