Reality Boy by A.S. King

by:  A.S. King
published by:  Little, Brown Books
publish date:  October 22, 2013

Gerald Faust knows exactly when he started feeling angry: the day his mother invited a reality television crew into his five-year-old life. Twelve years later, he’s still haunted by his rage-filled youth—which the entire world got to watch from every imaginable angle—and his anger issues have resulted in violent outbursts, zero friends, and clueless adults dumping him in the special education room at school.

Reality Boy is about the dark side of reality nanny shows.  Gerald's mother can't control her family so she applies for one of the British nanny shows and they come to her house.  However, Gerald's mother is set on blaming all the family's problems on him, when it is clear to everyone else that the instigator is Gerald's psychopathic older sister.  Gerald's acting out, like pooping all over the house, bring in the rating though, so that's what the show focuses on.  In the end, nothing gets fixed and Gerald earns the nickname The Crapper and he becomes a very angry young man endlessly tormented by his sister.

Reality Boy was a fantastic book.  I loved the fact that it was a very realistic book.  When Gerald finally does allow a girl to come into his life, there is no instalove and their relationship is so slow and up and down and all around like a normal relationship usually is.  I really appreciated that aspect of the book.

This book deal with a lot of issues involving anger and mental health issues.  Some of them are on the mature side, shall we say.  So while this is a YA book, I would probably say this one is probably more for the older YAs.