Character Analysis
Let's just get this out of the way: Sean's a jerk, and it's okay to hate him. In fact, he might seem like such a hateful character that you're tempted to call him the villain and call it a day. But, like all bad guys—okay, most bad guys—he's still human. Some bad guys are, in fact, monsters or werewolves or whatever, but Sean's just a dude who's had a truly nightmarish childhood and does not handle it well.
He's a middle child (no, that's not the nightmare part). His older brother, Chad, is a college student and drug dealer, and his younger brother, Wade, isn't in the story much—he answers the phone once and appears once to gawk at Kendra on the elliptical, and that's it—but Wade's appearance in the world changed Sean's life forever. His mom chose to give birth at home, and while Wade obviously survived, his mom didn't. A few years later, his dad died in a bus crash, and Sean and his brothers went to live with Aunt Mo and Uncle Jeff.
Yeah, that's the nightmare part.
What It Looks Like
On the outside, Sean's a jock. He's not just a baseball player, he's the baseball player. In fact, he's determined to be the best player in the history of his high school team, the Grizzlies. He's buff, he's good-looking, and his girlfriend, Cara, is a cheerleader. He's That Guy.
Sean's hoping for a baseball scholarship to Stanford, because that's where Cara's going, and in pursuit of his goal, he spends most of his time working out in the home gym Uncle Jeff installed. As he says:
[…] a real athlete shapes himself
muscle group by muscle
group, ignoring the
pain.
Focused completely on
the gain. It can't happen
overnight. It takes hours
every single day
and
no one can force you to
do it. Becoming the best
takes a shitload of inborn
drive. (3.4-6)
Sure, he's still angry over his parents' deaths, but he hasn't let it derail his life. He pays the occasional visit to his parents' graves and leaves flowers, and he buys his girlfriend a diamond pendant on Valentine's Day. If you didn't know Sean very well, you'd think he was the perfect son and boyfriend.
How It Really Is
Drugs are bad, mmkay?
Just like Kendra, Sean's not happy with the natural methods of altering his body. Sure, he can lift and take over-the-counter supplements, just like Kendra can ride her bike and diet, but he's still not buff enough. So when his friend Bobby Duvall comes over to lift one day and says, "I don't want to work/that hard. There's an easier/way" (3.37), Sean begins his love/hate relationship with steroids.
He immediately sees consequences. A hot and heavy make-out session with Cara almost leads to sex, except that Sean can no longer get an erection—but rather than realizing steroids are bad news and stepping away, Sean gets some Viagra from Chad to alleviate the problem and keeps on taking them.
It doesn't take long for Sean's addiction to progress to steroid psychosis, at which point he becomes a stalker who hears the voice of a malevolent character he calls "the guy behind my eyes." Yikes. Of all the narrators in Perfect, none throw away their future as profoundly as Sean.
Mission (Maybe Not?) Impossible
It's normal for teens to feel immortal and take risks. That's part of growing up, having a good time, and finding out who you are, and we all do stupid stuff when we're young. But Sean does some seriously stupid stuff. We're not talking about driving too fast, staying out too late, or even experimenting with drugs and alcohol—nope, we're talking about stalking and date rape. As a result of steroid-fueled bad decisions, Sean ends up on the wrong side of an arrest record and a restraining order.
His future is shaky at the end of the book. He still has his baseball scholarship to Stanford, but he knows his decision to go can't be based on Cara. At Conner's funeral, he doesn't seem to feel all that sad for Conner, but he does realize that he has to leave Cara alone and pursue dreams that have nothing to do with her. "I mean, putting/a ball over a fence, and/hearing people cheer for/me, well, that's a solo/effort, and a definite rush./Dead people don't get rushes" (55.7-8), he says.
Sean does a stellar job of screwing up his life, but there might be hope for him if he can give up steroids. Then he'll at least—hopefully—be free of the guy behind his eyes, which would at least be a start.
Sean Terrence O'Connell's Timeline