Reality Boy

Gerald is easily one of the most interesting characters I've seen lately. He's far from perfect, but it's easy to understand and sympathize with him, and I found myself getting invested pretty quickly.

The book itself is engaging, sometimes intense, sometimes funny. It's always honest, often depressingly so, and definitely has a fair bit of emotional heft.

And Tasha made me so much angrier than is probably reasonable.

The premise of Reality Boy is that the protagonist, Gerald, and his family were featured on a SuperNanny type reality show. At age 5, Gerald would shit on things to express his rage. This kind of went viral and led to him being known as the Crapper up until the present day, when he's in high school and seeing an anger management counselor.

I read a few reviews that questioned whether Gerald would be so famous from just being on a few episodes of one reality show, and it does seem sketchy, but King sets it up by making it clear that he went viral on YouTube and became kind of a cultural touchpoint for anger, and also that it's more of a local fame–he can't shed the name from people he's grown up around, but he doesn't seem to be recognized by outsiders (although they do seem to be familiar with “The Crapper” if asked). So, given those parameters... okay. Fine. He's the Crapper.

MY biggest issue was the British slang? I know this is a review copy so maybe it will be changed for the final version, but there's SO much of it. Halfway through the book I actually looked up A.S. King because I really thought she was American–which she is, but apparently she lived in Ireland for 10 years as an adult? But then, weirdly, Gerald calls out his imaginary guidance counselor Snow White for using British slang, and then he realizes he's been internalizing the British TV nanny? But a lot of the British slang comes from Gerald and other characters, not Snow White? Like, the school apparently has a “lav pass.” Hannah repeatedly talks about “doing the wash.” Is that regional? Do any American say that? Wait or is all of that inside Gerald's head? Ah now I'm overthinking this. The point is: it was weirdly distracting for me.

OK now that I've discussed the basic premise and the British slang, the book itself... was fine. A.S. King is good at writing about families with ~issues~, and I've loved her other books. Maybe the problem was that Gerald's family issues seemed... over the top? His mother and older sister Tasha, who both treat Gerald poorly, never seemed like realized characters. Gerald and his middle sister believe their older sister is a sociopath, which, okay, but... I don't know. It started to feel implausible, I guess. I did like seeing Gerald's side of things (since the show made Gerald out to be the worst child, not Tasha or the mother), and the little behind-the-scenes look at reality TV.

Also, after awhile, the long, long trips through Gerald's coping mechanisms seemed excessive?

I really wanted to like this book more than I did, I think. I've loved A.S. King's earlier books, and I love the idea of exploring what a childhood captured on reality TV would do to a teen, but... this just wasn't the book I was hoping for.