Reality Boy

by A.S. King

This is such a beautiful story. King really knows how to tug on the heartstrings.

It's about a seriously messed up boy (Gerald) with a seriously messed up family, and what do we do with messed up families? We put them on television! So this poor boy's life as a five-year-old was broadcast all over the world. Except, as most of us know, it wasn't his real life that got broadcast. It was the stuff that made him look the worst, because that's what America wants to see.

Now that boy is seventeen and that show still haunts him. People recognize him as the little boy they saw on television twelve years ago and they judge him based on what they saw on that. Needless to say, the poor boy doesn't have a whole lot of friends. He is also still trying to deal with his completely dysfunctional family and the fact that his oldest sister and his mom just don't love him. His other sister left the first chance she got and doesn't even bother to call. His dad loves him, but doesn't know how to stand up for him. So the kid is pretty much on his own when it comes to surviving his family, and I mean literally struggling to survive.

But it's all OK because he meets a girl! OK, that's true, but it's not as cheesy as it sounds. Yes, he meets a girl, and yes, she makes him happy, but it's not that simple. This book, like all good YA books, is about defining yourself, rather than letting the people around you define you. OK, that sounds cheesy, too, but I swear it's not. The fact that his five-year-old self was broadcast on national television adds a whole new dimension to idea of not letting others define you. 

I think we've all heard the story of the poor tortured high school student whose family expects her to get straight As and get into Stanford, or whatever, but there are fewer stories of kids whose family expect (even want) him to end up in special ed and in jail. 

So Gerald demands better. This is after his anger management coach has spent the past couple years telling him that he cannot demand anything. Any time that Gerald demands, or feels that he deserves, or should get something, could become a trigger for anger when he gets disappointed. So he doesn't demand anything. He doesn't even demand to to live in a safe place, until of course, at the end of the book, after he and his girlfriend run away from home.

The girlfriend is interesting because Gerald's anger management coach has been telling him that it's not a good idea for him to be dating. Girls are untrustworthy and infuriating, which just made me wonder what makes him think that boys are any better. Turns out the coach doesn't really know what he's talking about. Or maybe he taught Gerald so well that Gerald is now able to handle a relationship, because Gerald totally handles this relationship. It is far from perfect, and of course there are times when the girl (Hannah) infuriates him, because any time you care about someone they will eventually infuriate you. But Gerald and Hannah learn and they get past their differences and they end up running away together.

This is where the demands come in, because they're not just a couple of dumb kids who run away because they think it would be fun. OK, they kind of are, but there is a very legitimate point to them running away. They refuse to come home until their parents treat them better. Hannah might never have been on TV, but it turns out that her life is far from perfect. Her older brother left and both her parents have checked out, so she runs away with Gerald and the two of them come up with a list of demands (as in "I have kidnapped your child and will return said child only after you have met my demands"). After a few hundred panicked text messages, her mom finally gets it and agrees to make some changes. Gerald's dad takes a little more convincing, but in the end, he comes around, too.