My validation was Here the Whole Time (by Vitor Martins)

I recently read Here the Whole Time by Vitor Martins, and I’ve been trying to come up with a witty introduction to this post. I can’t think of one, so this is the intro… I’m going to talk about the book now :)

    Also, for those who want the video version of this post (CLICK HERE).

    So, my first point I’d like to bring up is that it was nice to see a bigger protagonist for once. I feel like, unless otherwise stated, you’re just going to assume that they are slimmer. So, having that explicit statement was nice. Like, the first line, the first sentence, was, “I am fat.” And then like two lines later it said, “I take up space in the street”, and God… Did that line hit me? Yes. Yes, it did. Not so much right now thanks to Miss Rona, but whenever I used to get on a bus or a train, I would shove myself into the corner of a window seat, or like, perch on the edge of an aisle seat, just so I wouldn’t take up too much space for the person sat next to me. So… yes, this book got me (gal) from that line. Also, on page 51, the main character, Felipe, mentions that he just feels like he always being watched – not in a paranoid way, in an anxiety way. And I just wanted to face the wall and scream.

  And now, I would like to mention, this isn’t a review or anything, more just a collection of my thoughts. 

   The book follows Felipe, who doesn’t believe someone like his neighbour, Caio, could ever like him. The concept is that Caio is coming over to stay in Felipe’s apartment for 15 days over Winter Break. And, as the time goes on, the two get closer to one another as they learn more about each other. Now, they also used to have this unspoken friendship when they were younger, because the apartment complex they live in has a pool, but then because of his weight, Felipe stops going one day, and Caio gets sad about this, and because Felipe is quiet, Caio wonders whether he is just shy, or a jerk.  

    Eventually, and spoiler alert, Felipe ends up falling in love with Caio, and he mentions (to the reader) that he wishes he had a best friend to talk to about it that wasn’t the boy he was in love with. And I’m just going to skip again, because I don’t want to spoil the story, since it was only released (in English) in 2020. It ends with self-acceptance which I just loved. Because I won’t lie, in my first relationship… I didn’t feel that, so I’m glad that Felipe got to, even if I didn’t.

    I will say, I was expecting it to go on for a little longer. Maybe I’m just used to the books I read being longer, but I feel like the book went by pretty quick. There is a quote on the book from Rainbow Rowell saying that they read it in one sitting, so maybe I was hit with something similar to that, but I don’t know, I felt like it just went by quickly. I think it might have had something to do with the fact that the conflict within the book came internally, within Felipe, rather than externally, with Felipe having to majorly overcome this outside force. You know, whether it be another person, or just the world itself.

    This whole book covers body image in such a way that I loved. Because I saw moments of myself in it. Page 135 says, “If I were skinny, I’d walk around everywhere just being thin”, which is obviously the way you think when you are what? Fat. But this moment comes when Felipe is with Caio, Caio’s friend Becky and Becky’s girlfriend, Melissa, and the four of them are at the pool at Felipe and Caio’s apartment complex. But neither Felipe nor Melissa get in (initially). Felipe doesn’t because we’ve had this setup that he doesn’t like his body. And Melissa, when she’s introduced, we’re immediately told that she’s really skinny. So, clearly it was like a two people on opposite ends of the body size spectrum, someone bigger and someone smaller, and showing us that neither of them liked their bodies. So, I did like that the book wasn’t just going, “Boo, skinny people!” which, if it hadn’t included that moment, might have run the risk of feeling like.

   Speaking of being fat – I am not the skinty-est – but I dated this guy once, and I don’t want to talk shit about him, but I he definitely had a type. Because there was me, then one day were just talking, we got onto celebrity crushes, mine at the time was Colin O’Donoghue – because I was watching Once Upon a Time at the time, and I thought Captain Hook was fine. But his was this wrestler who, when I Googled, I noticed had a similar body shape to me, shall I say? And then, one day, we were just out, walking together in town, and we run into his ex. Now, that in itself was fine, that happens if you live in the same place. But this ex… This was the point where I was like, “Oh, this is a pattern,” because his ex had the same body type as me and his celebrity crush. Someone who is larger shall we phrase it. Also, my ex always wanted me to sit on his lap, so I don’t know if that was something he was into. But I never did it because I was, guess what? Insecure about my weight!

    But to get back to the book (oops lol), Felipe is also horrendously awkward. So, we love that – no offense Felipe. Within the first 20 pages he’s accidentally yelling at Caio to get out of his room because he forgot to bring pyjamas into the bathroom with him when he took a shower. Now I’d like it to be known, I’m glad that I’m reading something with a protagonist that struggles. Now, I know loads of protagonists in books do struggle, but I’m not meaning against things that would generally be considered insurmountable to the “normal, everyday” person. I mean, he struggles with things like starting conversations with people. And, I don’t know, it was weirdly validating reading that.

    Another point I wanted to make is that, in my own writing, I often worry that I forget about my side characters, or they that they sometimes just feel like set pieces. Like they’re just there to help my main character, and I worry they have nothing going on for themselves. Now, here was the thing with this book. It didn’t have many characters, and the side characters – like Felipe’s mum and Caio’s friend Becky – they had little bits going on, but they weren’t that present. And this point that I’m writing now only came to me after I finished reading the book. I don’t think it mattered that the side characters didn’t have much going on. Like, I don’t think a side character always needs their own plot to be important, a story doesn’t always need a sub-plot to be good. And this book helped me realise that. As long as the side characters feel three dimensional, and your plot is strong enough on its own (even if it’s a concept that been done before), it doesn’t really matter.

    And to wrap up, there’s this moment I liked on page 182 where Felipe mentions he spends the day watching this new Netflix show, that he says is terrible but that he’s nearly done with the first season within a day… And that’s how I feel about Riverdale. It’s a mess, but I’ve seen every episode and I watch it weekly. 

     Okay, bye!