Gerald was only 5-years-old when his mother allowed a televison crew into their lives as part of a reality show. Network Nanny was supposed to help their already beyond repair family, especially Gerald who had been showing signs of anger before the show began to film. Instead, it made his life worse. He became known as the “crapper” after repeatedly defecating on the kitchen table as well as his mothers shoes and oldest sisters bed. 12 years later, Gerald is in anger management, taking special ed classes and can’t live down his childhood nickname. The people around him, including his family all think that his future consists only of jail and he begins to wonder if they are all right. One day, Hannah, a co worker and student at his school talks to him and they become friends. When things with Hannah grow and he falls in love with her, he wonders if maybe his future can be one of not jail, but of love, happiness and freedom.
First off, I loved this book, but I am going to start out this review with the things that pissed me off. Number one, Gerald’s mother. World’s worst parent award goes to this woman. There isn’t a parent that I have hated more in YA than this so-called mother. For one, at one point she basically comes out and says that she loves only her oldest child, Tasha and that she never developed those kinds of feelings for Gerald and his other older sister Lisi. I can’t fathom how a mother could actually say that, especially out loud and in front of cameras no less. Then there is the fact that she doesn’t see that her 5-year-old son is obviously acting out. He’s showing anger and pooping in places other than the toilet. Her idea is to turn to a fake nanny on a reality show. She is so quick to blame everything on him and call him the problem child, but there are other things going on in her house that are far more disturbing. She completely ignores the fact that Tasha hits her and at one point even chokes her. She doesn’t believe Gerald and Lisi when they tell her about her trying to drown them or suffocate them. She just thinks they are lying about her. The fake nanny starts to realize that Tasha is the problem and promises that she will help and make things better for him. His mother even puts him in special ed because she thinks he’s slow and can’t keep up in regular classes. Gerald eventually realizes that his mother needs him to be the bad child and she needs him to be in special ed because then Tasha is the smart and perfect child. He realizes that she never loved him and that was such a heartbreaking moment to read. It just made me hate her even more.
Number two, Tasha. She is a psychopath. As an eleven and twelve year old, she tortures her younger brother and sister. She is phsyically abusive towards her mother. When she is twelve years old she sleeps with a boy and when Gerald comes upon them she threatens to kill him if he says anything. She even pushes him down the stairs one day and says that he was about to take a dump. The nanny comforts Gerald while her mother went as far as to say that she believed Tasha and more than once said that it was because there was something wrong with “that child”. When she is twenty one, she is living in the basement and has very loud sex with her boyfriend on a regular basis. Everyone hears it but just doesn’t do anything about it. Her mother uses the blender and pretends she doesn’t hear it. When Gerald hollars down one day that they are having dinner and she is being disrepectful she comes upstairs and tells him that he’s gay, that’s why it bothers him. One day she even walks up to him and puts her hand over his nose and mouth in front of her parents, they don’t say anything but Gerald bites her. I have to admit, I loved that part. There is obviously something seriously wrong with her, but it is ignored in favor of blaming Gerald for everything.
I loved Gerald. Yes, he has some anger issues but who wouldn’t when you have an older sister that regularly tries to kill you and your sister and a mother who ignores it and blames you for everything. He grows up believing that his future is jail and nobody really does anything to convince him that he is worth more. There is this one scene where a hockey fan woman approaches him at work and tells him that she recognizes him from TV and that she was so sorry for what they put him through and how badly she wanted to go and take him home with her. She asks to give him a hug and he breaks down and cries. This was such a great part of the novel and it really showed how little affection he got at home. This was also the most heartbreaking part of the whole book. I love that he eventually comes to the realization that everything is not his fault and that his mother needs him to be this way so that Tasha isn’t an issue.
I was a big fan of the relationship between Gerald and Hannah. I loved that when they decided to become a couple, they made a list of rules for themselves. Gerald makes rule #5, no physical contact for two months. It was funny that Hannah was the one who was opposed to it. It was a role reversal from the usual way these things are in YA and I loved that scene between the two of them. My favorite part with them is when they do become intimate and Gerald describes it as them “breaking rule #5” and every time after, that is what he says. I just found it humorous. I liked that Hannah brought up her worries about the possiblity that Gerald could hit her. She doesn’t really come out and say it in so many words, but Gerald knows that’s what she is thinking. He tells her he would never hit her, but then later in the novel wonders if it could be a possibility. I don’t think there was ever a threat of him doing that, I think he was just worried about it because of all the crap that had been pushed into his head by other people. He did beat the crap out of a classmate and a boxer that he knew at the gym that he went to, but it would have been so easy for him to be abusive towards his mother and Tasha but that never even came close to happening. I think that his anger really did come from the way Tasha treated him and how his mother handled the whole thing. Had he been in a better environment, I don’t think anger would have been an issue for him. I think that falling in love with Hannah and getting out of his situation is the best thing that could have happened to him.
I liked the writing style of this novel. I liked that there were present day chapters and also chapters that were flash backs to the time of the reality show. They didn’t feel like they were scattered all over and there was a good flow between the two and they really worked well together. I think the flash backs really helped to show what Gerald grew up around and how he was treated. It helped to understand him and why he was acting the way that he was. It’s easy to see him as a hot tempered teenager who has no control over his actions, but I felt bad for him and just wanted him to catch a break. I enjoyed watching him realize that he could fall in love and someone could love him back just as much. He figured out that he could go to regular classes and have a good chance at going to college. He tells his father that he needs to get away from Tasha and that he can’t take it anymore. He stops thinking that the only thing his future holds is jail and starts seeing that he can have a good and happy future, that might include marrying Hannah and having kids. He finally sees that his mother and Tasha are what made him an angry kid and that it wasn’t his fault. He knows that he can do better and be a better person and he doesn’t have to settle for the life that someone says he is supposed to have, he can make his own future and prove everybody wrong.
Again, I really loved this novel and I’m so glad that I finally picked it up and read it. I think everyone should read this book at least once, I don’t think you will regret it. I gave Reality Boy 5 stars on Goodreads.
Keep reading…Lola
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