Alex Gonzalez’s debut novel Rekt arrives like a sledgehammer to the digital age’s collective conscience, delivering a visceral examination of how grief, masculinity, and internet culture can weaponize each other in catastrophic ways. This isn’t just another cautionary tale about online dangers—it’s a full-throttle psychological horror that forces readers to confront the uncomfortable truth about what we consume when we think no one is watching.
A Story That Cuts Deep: Plot and Premise
The novel follows Sammy Dominguez, a 21-year-old Florida State University student whose world implodes when his girlfriend Ellery dies in a car accident. What begins as traditional grief spirals into something far more sinister when Sammy discovers chinsky, a dark web betting site that generates AI-powered death videos of real people—including footage of Ellery’s actual accident.
Gonzalez crafts his narrative with the relentless momentum of a car crash itself. As Sammy descends deeper into chinsky’s algorithmic hell, he encounters Jay and Izzy, fellow travelers on this digital highway to nowhere, and together they embark on a violent quest to eliminate the site’s “Page 40” bettors—small-time players whose sloppy work makes them traceable targets.
The plot structure mirrors the very addiction it depicts: each chapter pulls readers deeper into Sammy’s obsession, creating an uncomfortable complicity between audience and protagonist. We become voyeurs to his voyeurism, trapped in the same compulsive scrolling that destroys him.
Character Development: Broken People in a Broken System
The Protagonist’s Tragic Arc
Sammy Dominguez emerges as one of horror’s most uncomfortably human monsters. Gonzalez refuses to make him sympathetic in traditional ways—instead, he’s achingly, recognizably real. His transformation from grieving boyfriend to campus predator to vigilante killer feels inevitable yet shocking, a masterclass in character degradation that never loses its emotional core.
The novel’s greatest strength lies in how it traces Sammy’s various identities: Blue Bird (his CreepyPasta username), Teddy Dameron (his off-grid alias), and eventually the Wax Man (his fictional creation that becomes terrifyingly real). Each persona represents another layer of his psychological decomposition, showing how online spaces can become laboratories for our worst impulses.
Supporting Cast: Mirrors and Foils
Jay emerges as both Sammy’s salvation and damnation—a Black woman whose brother’s death drove her to hunt chinsky users with methodical precision. Her relationship with the unreliable Izzy creates a tense triangle that explores how trauma bonds people in destructive ways. Gonzalez handles Jay’s character with particular care, avoiding typical “strong Black woman” tropes while giving her genuine agency and complexity.
The supporting characters, from the Pakistani liquor store owner who repeatedly tells Sammy “things will improve” to Ryan Vasquez (the grief-obsessed standardized patient), create a tapestry of modern American dysfunction that feels both specific and universal.
Thematic Depths: More Than Shock Value
Digital Age Masculinity
Gonzalez’s exploration of toxic masculinity avoids heavy-handed moralizing by showing rather than telling. Sammy’s descent begins with his inability to process grief in healthy ways—a failing rooted in cultural expectations that men should be stoic, self-reliant, and aggressive. The novel demonstrates how online spaces can amplify these destructive tendencies, turning personal pain into public violence.
The character of Uncle Ted serves as a generational mirror, showing how masculine dysfunction passes from one generation to the next. Ted’s death in the garage becomes a foundational trauma that shapes Sammy’s relationship with crying, vulnerability, and help-seeking—all gendered behaviors in American culture.
The Internet as Psychological Weapon
Perhaps the novel’s most prescient element is its portrayal of algorithmic manipulation. Chinsky doesn’t just show users what they want to see—it anticipates their desires, creates new ones, and ultimately reshapes their reality. The site’s ability to generate “death videos” of living people serves as a metaphor for how digital platforms can make our worst fantasies feel inevitable.
Gonzalez’s background as a WGA screenwriter shows in his understanding of how visual media shapes consciousness. The novel’s structure, alternating between traditional narrative and internet-style formatting (chat logs, forum posts, user profiles), creates an immersive experience that mirrors modern media consumption.
Grief in the Digital Age
The novel’s treatment of grief feels particularly relevant in our social media era. Sammy’s inability to let go of Ellery becomes magnified by her digital presence—YouTube videos, photos, the persistent illusion that technology can preserve what we’ve lost. The StinkySmellery subplot, where someone resurrects Ellery’s defunct YouTube channel, shows how digital ghosts can haunt us in ways previous generations never experienced.
Writing Style: Form Follows Function
Gonzalez’s prose style deserves particular praise for its versatility and authenticity. The novel seamlessly shifts between several modes:
Traditional narrative sections showcase Gonzalez’s ability to create atmosphere and develop character through conventional storytelling. His descriptions of Florida—from FSU’s “sun-soaked” campus to the gothic atmosphere of Blood Mountain—create a sense of place that feels both specific and mythic.
Internet vernacular appears throughout the novel in the form of greentext stories (“>be me, 26”), forum posts, and chat logs. Rather than feeling gimmicky, these sections enhance the novel’s thematic concerns about how digital communication shapes identity and relationships.
Stream-of-consciousness passages, particularly during Sammy’s psychological breaks, capture the fragmented nature of trauma and addiction. Gonzalez’s ability to maintain readability while depicting mental dissolution shows impressive technical skill.
Technical Craft: Structure and Pacing
The novel’s structure mirrors its thematic content in sophisticated ways. Each section represents a different stage of addiction: introduction, experimentation, escalation, and ultimately, destruction. The pacing accelerates as Sammy’s obsession deepens, creating genuine page-turning tension despite the increasingly disturbing content.
Gonzalez’s use of multimedia elements (fake forum posts, email chains, user profiles) could have felt forced, but instead these sections provide necessary breathing room while advancing the plot. The “CampfireFables.com” entries, in particular, show how online communities can nurture both creativity and toxicity.
The novel’s climax, set on Blood Mountain, brings the digital horror into physical reality in ways that feel both satisfying and inevitable. The circular structure—beginning and ending with Sammy’s apparent death—reinforces themes about cycles of violence and the internet’s eternal memory.
Critical Assessment: Where the Novel Succeeds and Struggles
Strengths
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez succeeds brilliantly as both horror novel and social commentary. Gonzalez never lets readers off the hook—we’re forced to examine our own digital consumption habits and their psychological effects. The novel’s unflinching portrayal of online radicalization feels urgently relevant without becoming preachy.
The character work throughout is exceptional, particularly in how secondary characters like Jay and Maria feel like real people rather than plot devices. Even minor characters (the Skunk, Pastor Markelli, the various Page 40 targets) have distinct voices and motivations.
The novel’s exploration of grief feels genuine and affecting. Gonzalez captures the particular way traumatic loss can make normal life feel impossible, driving people toward increasingly extreme coping mechanisms.
Areas for Improvement
Some readers may find the novel’s length excessive—at times, Sammy’s descent feels repetitive rather than progressive. Certain sections, particularly the extended Pine Lake Park sequence, could benefit from tighter editing.
The novel’s violence, while thematically justified, may overwhelm some readers. Gonzalez walks a fine line between depicting horror and glorifying it, and occasionally that balance tips toward the gratuitous.
The ending, while thematically appropriate, may frustrate readers seeking clearer resolution. The novel’s circular structure reinforces its themes but provides limited catharsis for readers who’ve endured Sammy’s journey.
Cultural Context and Comparisons
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez joins a growing subgenre of horror fiction examining digital culture’s psychological effects. It shares DNA with novels like The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (trauma and violence cycles) and Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (atmospheric horror with social commentary), though Gonzalez’s focus on internet culture feels uniquely contemporary.
The novel’s exploration of toxic masculinity and online radicalization connects it to non-fiction works like Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates and The Troll Factory by Samantha North, though Gonzalez’s fictional approach allows for more visceral emotional impact.
Fans of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club or Choke will recognize similar themes about masculinity in crisis, though Gonzalez’s digital-age perspective offers fresh insights into familiar problems.
Final Verdict: A Necessary Horror
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez is not an easy read—nor should it be. Gonzalez has crafted a horror novel that functions as both entertainment and warning, showing how digital spaces can transform personal pain into public violence. While the novel’s content is undeniably disturbing, its insights into grief, masculinity, and internet culture feel essential for understanding our current moment.
This is horror fiction at its most purposeful: using genre conventions to explore real-world fears and anxieties. Gonzalez proves himself a major new voice in contemporary horror, one willing to confront the uncomfortable truths about how we live, love, and suffer in the digital age.
Rekt by Alex Gonzalez deserves its place among the year’s most important horror novels, even if its uncompromising vision won’t appeal to all readers. For those willing to confront its dark mirror of contemporary digital culture, it offers rewards that linger long after the final page.
Recommended for readers who enjoyed: The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, and the Black Mirror television series.
Content warnings: Graphic violence, sexual assault, substance abuse, suicide, and disturbing imagery throughout.