Title: First Person Shooter Author: Cameron Raynes Publisher: MidnightSun Publishing Rating: 3.5 stars
Blurb:
Jayden lives with his father on the edge of a small country town. He stutters and is addicted to video games. His best friend Shannon knows how to handle a rifle. When her mum is released from prison, the town waits to see whether her sociopathic stepson Pete will exact revenge for the manslaughter of his father. Caught with ammunition at school and suspended, Jayden's world disintegrates. As a drug war erupts, Pete gears up for his violent assault. Will it be left to Jayden to stop him?
First Person Shooter was a very interesting read. I had initially heard about it in the context of being a young adult novel, and I believe this is how it was marketed as well. That makes sense, given that the protagonist, Jayden, was in his teens, and so were several of the other characters. However, the copy I got from my library had catalogued it as straight-up fiction. I suppose I can see where the lines blur, and how this novel might definitely be seen as Australian literary fiction, but personally, I'm going to categorise it as a YA book.
I gave First Person Shooter three stars on Goodreads, but it really sits comfortably at 3.5 stars rating for me. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it. It just didn't knock it out of the park like I thought it might. It's a very intense read. Intense is definitely the word I'd use to describe it. The entirety of the novel stretches over the span of about a week, but it feels much longer. The hot, long days of a small rural town in Australia are reflected beautifully in how time drags throughout the novel.
We're inside the mind of Jayden from the get-go. I quite liked Jayden as a character. He was an interesting subversion of the stereotypical hyper-masucline young man in a rural setting. I think that the character of Thommo was supposed to provide the contrast and actually meet that stereotype, but even then, he had a few small glimpses of not fitting into the role he'd carved out for himself. His treatment of the guinea pigs was one of these (and one of my favourite small moments -- the idea of him, and I do hope it was him, setting up the little cardboard playground for them was lovely).
Shannon was also an interesting exercise in subversion of gender roles, which I suspect was one of the Raynes' larger intentions with the novel. She was a totally kick-ass best friend to Jayden, and ultimately his love interest, too. But what I quite liked about it was that she was also very much the driver of the plot, the motivation for a whole swathe of important actions. Pete's looming, terrifying presence over the whole story was largely in part because of, or related to, Shannon. She wasn't just a stick figure love interest character. She also wasn't a passive receptacle for everyone else's issues. She was her own person, with her own issues and struggles and beliefs, and was just generally awesome.
The character with the strongest presence on the page, however, for me at least, was definitely Pete. Pete was a rare example of a true villain. By this, I mean a character with truly no redeeming features. I cannot imagine anyone trying to romanticise his actions, or defending him, or writing fanfiction about him and Shannon. (I mean, okay, I can imagine it, because a small portion of the Jessica Jones fandom has done the same thing with the character of Kilgrave, but Pete is despicable, is what I'm getting at).
If the fact that he seems to have sexually assaulted his sister, paralysed one of his friends, assaulted countless people, threatened almost everyone, and cooks meth isn't enough to put you off this guy, let me tell you the thing that will. He hurts a dog. Badly. I don't usually like to read anything that features animal abuse because I just don't need that in my life, but I can understand why it was written here. Pete is foul. He hurt a dog. Foul.
For some reason, and it may have to do with the tone, and the darker themes (incest, animal abuse, long, dragging days in the country), First Person Shooter reminded me a little of Sonya Hartnett's Sleeping Dogs, which I read when I was in Year 12, and really stayed with me. I didn't exactly like it, but it stayed in my head, so that's the sign of art.
Overall, First Person Shooter was an interesting, intense read, with some complex characters. I'm glad I read it, but I don't think I'd re-read it.