Reality Boy by A.S. King

I had heard YA booktubers raving about the works of AS King, so I took it upon myself to pick one up and give it a go. (Plus, this one was really cheap.) After all, I am always looking for new books to stock in the high school library.

Gerald Faust is otherwise known as The Crapper. He was a child on a reality TV programme 10 years ago - one of those nanny programmes. Yes, let your imagination figure out how he got that name. Now, Gerald is completely consumed with anger. Can he get control of his life?

If we are going purely on a rating as to whether I enjoyed this or not, I am going to have to go with a very average rating. There were many things about this book that I appreciated though. I liked how it challenged the concept of reality TV and exposed the harm that it can do - something that is not necessarily a new concept, but one I have never come across in literature before. I also appreciated the use of language and how King dealt with a topic that was sensitive.

I did, however, feel that Gerald's innocence was exaggerated. Granted, he had reason to do what he did, but he was not completely innocent either. I did not believe that in a different situation, Gerald would have been a wonderful guy. But the overall message made up for that. I liked the outcome of this novel.

Although I enjoyed the language in this, the swing between what was real and imagined would make this book extremely challenging for less experienced readers, so that is definitely something to be considered if purchasing this for someone else.

I did appreciate that Gerald was shown that his life was not the only that sucked though (forgive the less than formal term, but we are talking YA here) and that he started to become less self-obsessed, as he realised that he wasn't the only person in the world who had been treated unfairly, who had problems with their families, or who felt that their life was out of their control.

Would I recommend it? Not really. Perhaps to younger readers who are up for the challenge.

I gave this 3 stars on Goodreads, because I liked the language.

This is the 74th book I have read for the 2015 TBR Pile Reading challenge.