In first person, the reader is Luke, becomes Luke, who becomes Grant in a sense. Although this results in secondary and tertiary characters being underdeveloped, the potency that is the “Grant Parker” persona almost develops as a character in its own right.
Luke is an unassuming boy who likes indie and punk music, has a more or less apathetic attitude towards education, and could care less about sports. Basically, the opposite of Grant Parker. After the fight that lands Grant in a coma and Luke a potential murderer, Grant’s girlfriend, Penny, invites Luke in to fill the “Grant Parker” role.
The “Grant Parker” persona slowly eats away at Luke, destroying what little life he had in his father’s little town, destroying him. It became a cancer growing more malignant until homecoming night when the persona actually manifested itself to Luke in a drunken hallucination.
The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker is not an after school special. It’s not a flyaway contemporary YA novel or high school romance. It’s just a story about a boy.