Alex Gonzalez’s debut novel Rekt arrives like a sledgehammer to the conscience, delivering a brutally honest examination of grief, toxic masculinity, and the algorithmic manipulation that preys on our darkest impulses. This is not merely another horror novel about the dangers of the internet—it’s a visceral exploration of how trauma transforms us into versions of ourselves we barely recognize, and how the digital world amplifies our worst tendencies until they consume us entirely.
The Descent Begins: Plot and Premise
The story follows Sammy Dominguez, a 21-year-old college student whose world implodes when his girlfriend Ellery dies in a car accident. What begins as a seemingly straightforward grief narrative quickly spirals into something far more sinister when Sammy receives a mysterious link to chinsky, a dark web site that appears to contain footage of real deaths—including Ellery’s own fatal crash.
Gonzalez masterfully constructs Sammy’s psychological deterioration through his escalating consumption of violent content. The progression feels both inevitable and horrifying: from accidentally viewing gore as a child, to seeking it out as a coping mechanism, to eventually becoming a predator himself. The author doesn’t shy away from depicting the most uncomfortable aspects of this journey, forcing readers to confront how quickly someone can transform from victim to perpetrator.
The novel’s structure, peppered with forum posts, text messages, and wiki entries, creates an unsettling multimedia experience that feels authentically digital. These elements aren’t mere gimmicks—they serve to illustrate how completely our online and offline identities have merged, and how the internet has become a repository for our collective trauma.
Character Development: The Making of a Monster
Sammy’s Transformation
Gonzalez’s greatest achievement lies in making Sammy simultaneously sympathetic and reprehensible. We understand his initial grief and can even empathize with his desperate search for meaning after Ellery’s death. However, the author refuses to excuse Sammy’s increasingly predatory behavior, particularly his psychological torture of young women by showing them fabricated videos of their own deaths.
The character’s evolution from grieving boyfriend to digital predator serves as a chilling commentary on how unprocessed trauma can metastasize into something genuinely dangerous. Sammy’s obsession with his “Blue Bird” persona—his online identity as a horror fiction writer—becomes a vehicle for exploring how the internet allows us to fragment our identities and experiment with increasingly extreme versions of ourselves.
The Supporting Cast
The supporting characters, particularly Jay and Izzy, serve as fascinating foils to Sammy’s descent. Jay, whose brother died after being filmed jumping from a building, represents what Sammy could have become—someone who channels their trauma into action rather than consumption. Her relationship with Izzy, revealed to be a fellow “Bettor” on the chinsky platform, adds layers of complexity to questions of complicity and redemption.
Becca Steiner emerges as perhaps the novel’s most tragic figure—the healthy relationship Sammy abandons in favor of his digital obsessions. Her offer to take him to Portland represents the road not taken, the possibility of healing that Sammy rejects in favor of his destructive spiral.
Thematic Depth: More Than Digital Horror
The Algorithm as Antagonist
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez presents the internet not as a neutral tool but as an active predator that learns from and amplifies our worst impulses. The chinsky platform, with its AI-generated death scenarios and cryptocurrency betting system, represents the logical endpoint of algorithmic engagement optimization. The site doesn’t just show users what they want to see—it creates increasingly extreme content to keep them engaged, much like how real social media platforms function today.
The novel’s exploration of “generations” versus “simulations” raises profound questions about artificial intelligence’s role in shaping reality. When the AI begins creating scenarios that real people then fulfill, the line between prediction and orchestration becomes terrifyingly blurred.
Toxic Masculinity and Grief
Gonzalez doesn’t merely observe toxic masculinity—he dissects it with surgical precision. Sammy’s inability to process grief in healthy ways stems partly from societal expectations about how men should handle emotional pain. His turn to violent content represents a grotesque parody of masculine stoicism, where feeling nothing becomes preferable to feeling everything.
The novel’s treatment of Uncle Ted—a deeply flawed man whose love for Sammy is genuine but destructive—illustrates how toxic patterns pass between generations. Sammy’s mother’s observation that “Uncle Ted is living out his final years through you” proves prophetic in the most disturbing ways possible.
Literary Craftsmanship: Style and Structure
Authenticity in Horror
Gonzalez demonstrates remarkable skill in maintaining authenticity throughout the novel’s most extreme sequences. The forum posts, wiki entries, and chat logs feel genuinely researched rather than superficially constructed. This attention to detail makes the horror more effective because it feels plausible—these could be real websites, real people, real conversations happening in dark corners of the internet right now.
The author’s background as a screenwriter is evident in the novel’s pacing and visual storytelling. Scenes unfold with cinematic clarity, making even the most disturbing sequences impossible to look away from. The violence, while graphic, never feels gratuitous—it serves the larger narrative purpose of illustrating how consuming such content warps both perpetrator and victim.
Structural Innovation
The novel’s incorporation of multimedia elements—wiki articles, forum posts, text messages—creates a unique reading experience that mirrors how we actually consume information in the digital age. These insertions provide crucial context while maintaining the story’s momentum, and they often prove more unsettling than the main narrative.
The use of greentext formatting (“>be me, 26”) throughout connects directly to internet culture while serving as a distancing mechanism—allowing Sammy to narrate his own horror as if it were happening to someone else.
Critical Assessment: Strengths and Limitations
What Works Brilliantly
Rekt succeeds as both horror novel and social commentary because Alex Gonzalez never allows readers to simply dismiss Sammy as a monster. The author forces us to trace the logical progression from normal college student to digital predator, making the horror more effective because it feels possible. The novel’s exploration of how algorithms exploit human psychology feels particularly urgent given current concerns about social media manipulation and AI development.
The book’s treatment of grief as a transformative force—potentially leading toward either healing or destruction—provides emotional weight that elevates it above typical horror fiction. Gonzalez understands that the most effective horror comes from recognizing ourselves in the monster.
Areas for Improvement
While the novel’s multimedia approach is generally effective, some forum posts and wiki entries feel slightly over-written, breaking the illusion of authenticity. Additionally, certain secondary characters could benefit from deeper development—particularly some of the victims in Sammy’s path, who occasionally feel more like plot devices than fully realized people.
The novel’s ending, while thematically appropriate, may leave readers seeking more concrete resolution. However, this ambiguity serves the story’s themes about the internet’s persistence—nothing ever truly dies online, and actions continue to have consequences long after their perpetrators are gone.
Cultural Relevance and Timeliness
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez arrives at a moment when concerns about internet radicalization, AI manipulation, and digital addiction have moved from fringe concerns to mainstream discourse. The novel’s depiction of how algorithms can guide vulnerable individuals toward increasingly extreme content feels particularly relevant given recent discussions about YouTube’s recommendation system and social media’s role in promoting dangerous ideologies.
The book’s exploration of cryptocurrency-based betting on real violence anticipates concerning developments in digital culture, where the line between entertainment and reality continues to blur. Gonzalez’s vision of “chinsky” feels like a natural evolution of existing dark web marketplaces and prediction markets.
Comparison to Contemporary Horror
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez occupies similar territory to works like Black Mirror, Fight Club, and American Psycho, but brings a uniquely contemporary perspective to questions of digital-age alienation. Like Chuck Palahniuk’s work, Shock Induction, it uses extreme scenarios to illuminate uncomfortable truths about modern masculinity and consumer culture. However, Gonzalez’s focus on algorithmic manipulation adds layers that weren’t possible in earlier works.
The novel shares DNA with recent techno-horror like Dave Eggers’ The Circle and William Gibson’s Agency, but grounds its speculative elements in recognizable psychology and current technology trends.
Final Verdict: A Disturbing Mirror to Digital Life
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez is not an easy read—nor should it be. Alex Gonzalez has crafted a deeply uncomfortable examination of how digital culture can amplify our worst impulses until they consume us entirely. The novel succeeds because it doesn’t offer easy answers or comfortable distance from its central horrors. Instead, it forces readers to confront how thin the line between consumer and predator really is in our algorithmic age.
While the book’s graphic content and disturbing themes will limit its audience, readers willing to engage with its difficult material will find a thoughtful, terrifying exploration of grief, masculinity, and digital manipulation that feels urgently relevant to our current moment.
This is horror fiction at its most effective—not because it shows us monsters, but because it shows us how easily we might become them ourselves. In an age where algorithms increasingly shape our reality, Rekt by Alex Gonzalez serves as both warning and mirror, reflecting back the darkest possibilities of our digital future.
