A.S. King is the author of the highly acclaimed Reality Boy; Ask the Passengers, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner; Everybody Sees the Ants; and the Edgar Award nominated, Michael L. Printz Honor book Please Ignore Vera Dietz. She is also the author of The Dust of 100 Dogs, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. When asked about her writing, King says, "Some people don't know if my characters are crazy or if they are experiencing something magical. I think that's an accurate description of how I feel every day." She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and children.
Reality Boy
by A. S. King
eBook
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ISBN-13:
9780316222693
- Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
- Publication date: 10/22/2013
- Sold by: Hachette Digital, Inc.
- Format: eBook
- Pages: 272
- File size: 1 MB
- Age Range: 15 - 17 Years
Available on NOOK devices and apps
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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.
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King (Ask the Passengers) drafts a nuanced portrayal of a boy saddled with the nickname the Crapper because of his infamous behavior at age five on a reality show, Network Nanny. Now almost 17, Gerald Faust is ostracized by his peers, barely keeping his violent urges at bay, and grateful for his spot in special ed because, he says, “I need to not be on my guard all the time.... I need a place where I don’t need war paint to survive.” Although the Network Nanny episodes about Gerald’s family framed him as the problem child among his siblings, the truth was more disturbing, as King shows in flashbacks that are as uncomfortable to read as reality TV can be to watch, and equally impossible to turn away from. But this is 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. Ages 15–up. Agent: Michael Bourret, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (Oct.)
A 2013 Publishers Weekly Best YA Book
A 2013 School Library Journal Best Book
A 2013 Kirkus Reviews Best YA Book
A 2013 VOYA Perfect Ten Book
A 2013 Association of Booksellers for Children Best Book for Children
A 2014 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
A 2014 YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers BookAn Amazon Best Book of the Month
A Publishers Weekly Book of the Week
A Winter 2013-2014 Top Ten Kids' Indie Next List Pick
A 2014 Texas Tayshas Reading List Top Ten Book
A 2014 Carolyn W. Field Award Nominee
A 2015-16 Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award Master List Book"
A.S. King is one of the best Y.A. writers working today. She captures the disorientation of adolescence brilliantly.... Reality Boy is finally a novel about whether you are fated to the life the world expects you to have."John Green, The New York Times Book Review
* "Heart-pounding and heartbreaking.... a compulsively readable portrait of two imperfect teens learning to trust each other and themselves."Kirkus Reviews, starred review
* "A nuanced portrayal....This is a story about healing."Publishers Weekly, starred review
* "King's trademarksattuned first-person narrative, convincing dialogue, realistic language, and fitting quirkinessconnect effectively in this disturbing, yet hopeful novel."School Library Journal, starred review
* "King's writing is tighter, more focused, and better than ever....[An] intense and incredibly fresh plot."VOYA, starred review
* "King offers a compelling look at possible long-term effects of reality shows.... thought-provoking and ultimately optimistic."Library Media Connection, starred review
"Put down the remote and pick up Reality Boyit's a showstopper."The Horn Book
"The hallmarks of [King's] 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."Booklist
"[A] smart and sympathetic story about breaking free from the world's expectations."The Bulletin
"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."Dodie Ownes, SLJTeen
"Blending magic and realism, this is a subtly written, profoundly honest novel about a kid falling through the cracks and pulling himself back up."
Gr 9 Up—When 16-year-old Gerald was 5, his parents made a contract to appear on a reality television show where a stage nanny offered techniques to mend their beyond-repair family. Gerald was targeted as the problem child when it was actually his psychopathic sister, Tasha, who was the true menace. His parents turned a blind eye, repeatedly allowing their firstborn to torment and threaten the lives of Gerald, sister Lisi, and even the mother while the edited television broadcasts skewed the truth. At first, readers will be taken aback when they learn that little on-camera Gerald defecated on Tasha's and his mother's belongings, earning him the infamous nickname "Crapper," but they will soon realize that in his young mind it was his only weapon of defense in a desperate situation. The horror and injustice of it all follow insecure, agry Gerald into his teens. So does fearsome, unemployed Tasha when she moves into the family's basement with her boyfriend, has loud and regular sex, and is still enabled by their parents. When Gerald warily falls in love with Hannah, a schoolmate and coworker with family troubles of her own, "kidnapping" themselves by running away together seems their only recourse to wake up their parents. King's trademarks-attuned first-person narrative, convincing dialogue, realistic language, and fitting quirkiness-connect effectively in this disturbing, yet hopeful novel. Not since Norma Fox Mazer's disquieting When She Was Good (Scholastic, 1997) has an emotionally and mentally deranged sibling and dysfunctional parents wreaked such havoc on a main character who still manages to survive and grow beyond it.—Diane P. Tuccillo, Poudre River Public Library District, CO
"Everybody's so full of shit," declares the epigraph of this heart-pounding and heartbreaking novel, setting the tone of the narrative: cynical, disappointed and slyly funny. Gerald "the Crapper" Faust has not yet outlived the notoriety he achieved at age 5 by defecating on the kitchen table during their stint on Network Nanny, a "reality" television show that edited out most of the truth about his dysfunctional family life. Gerald has struggled to manage his anger in the 12 years since with the help of a few compassionate adults at school and work, but at its root, his rage remains unmitigated. In suspenseful flashbacks, Gerald details the damage wrought by his oldest sister, Tasha, a spoiled sociopathic despot. When he meets Hannah, a troubled beauty who sees him as he is instead of as he was, he cannot resist the possibility of genuine connection, despite the dangers. King deftly depicts the angst of first love in all its awkward, confusing glory. Even when she trots out the archetypical road-trip-as-journey-to-self-discovery, King writes with an honesty that allows Hannah and Gerald to call each other on their bullshit and ultimately arrive at an intimacy that feels neither forced nor false. This is no fairy-tale romance, but a compulsively readable portrait of two imperfect teens learning to trust each other and themselves. (Fiction. 14 & up)