Reality Boy

In this fearless portrayal of a boy on the edge, highly acclaimed Printz Honor author A.S. King explores the desperate reality of a former child "star" struggling to break free of his anger.Gerald Faust started feeling angry even before his mother invited a reality TV 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. No one cares that Gerald has tried to learn to control himself; they're all just waiting for him to snap. And he's starting to feel dangerously close to doing just that...until he chooses to create possibilities for himself that he never knew he deserved.From BooklistSeventeen-year-old Gerald became infamous at age five, when he took a dump on his family’s kitchen table for the whole reality-TV viewing public to see. A network TV nanny came in to help Gerald be less of a problem child, but the cameras didn’t catch what Tasha, his older sister and tormentor, was doing to him and his other sister, Lisi, or his mother’s constant defense of her eldest daughter at the expense of her youngest children. And so Gerald continued to rage on. Though years of anger-management training and a boxing-gym regimen have helped him gain better control, his future still feels limited to jail or death. The narrative, though striking and often heartbreaking, is disjointed in places, namely with Gerald’s grand plan to run away to the circus. However, this is still a King novel, and the hallmarks of her strong work are there: magical realism, heightened emotion, and the steady, torturous, beautiful transition into self-assured inner peace. Like Gerald, it’s wonderfully broken. Grades 9-12. --Courtney Jones Review''Timely, incisive, compassionate. All of A. S. King's novels are must-reads.'' -- Matthew Quick, New York Times bestselling author ''A story about healing, and although Gerald stumbles as he takes his first steps -- he frequently retreats to the fantasy world he calls Gersday and struggles to trust the girl he allows to get close -- his candor invites sympathy from the first page.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred review) ''Heart-pounding and heartbreaking . . . This is no fairy-tale romance, but a compulsively readable portrait of two imperfect teens learning to trust each other and themselves.'' --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) ''We all know at least one teen who needs a book like this; I didn't know I needed it until I turned the last page.'' --SLJ Teen ''Reality Boy is a powerhouse of insight and empathy toward the people who cruise the fringes of acceptable behavior. A. S. King takes all kinds of risks and every single one pays off. Highly recommended.'' --Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author