Reality Boy by A.S. King

When Gerald was five, his mom had the TV show Network Nanny come into their house and try to fix their family, especially Gerald, who his mother called retarded all the time. She always defended Tasha (his older sister) who does things way worse than he would ever do. The whole world saw his family, and they never forgot about him. The thing is, the show only showed a little bit of what really happened, and made Gerald look like the bad one.

It doesn't help that 12 years later, Lisi (his other sister) is away at college, and Tasha lives in the basement, being very loud in her life. Gerald is close to his dad, but his mom is a different story. Everyone is scared when he will lose control and his anger will take over, and he feels very close to doing that.

Reality Boy had an angry tone, but it faded through the book a little bit. I really liked this book because he was angry for a reason, not just angry to be angry. I think he deserved to be angry about Network Nanny, however I think sometimes he went a little far. Hannah was a complex character. I liked that she did not really care about Gerald's history on the show, but she was really hard to figure out.

I really liked the ending. I think that it wrapped things up really nicely and even though it was not happily ever after, it was pretty close to it! Although the reading level is middle grade, due to some of the language used and some of the content, I feel this book is young adult.

I highly recommend that you read this book!

Title: Reality Boy
Author: A.S. King
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 353
Series: No
Rating: 4 Stars
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