rekt: Clickbait from Hell

Alex Gonzalez is a WGA screenwriter and horror fiction writer, which means he gets paid to make people deeply uncomfortable. Born and raised in Florida—because of course—he now lurks in Brooklyn, a place only marginally less terrifying than the setting of his book. He co-founded the horror zine youarenotalone, a title that feels eerily relevant when reading rekt, considering its themes of internet voyeurism, grief, and the slow, rotting descent into digital nihilism. Gonzalez also teaches horror writing workshops, meaning he’s actively training others to fuck with your head. Thanks, dude.

rekt is the story of Sammy Dominguez, a man whose life is crumbling faster than your WiFi connection at peak hours. Once a seemingly functional human with a future, Sammy finds himself sinking into the darkest corners of the internet after his girlfriend, Ellery, dies in a brutal accident. What starts as morbid curiosity—watching gore videos as a coping mechanism—mutates into a full-blown obsession when he stumbles onto Chinsky, a dark web hellhole that provides a buffet of snuff films, including a disturbing number of videos that seem to feature alternate deaths of Ellery herself.

As Sammy delves deeper, his life implodes. His relationships dissolve, his sanity flickers like a dying LED light, and his moral compass? That thing is spinning like a fucking Beyblade. But Rekt isn’t just about one man watching too much internet horror—it’s about the very real horror of the internet watching back. It’s about AI, voyeurism, and the terrifying realization that nothing online is ever really gone.

If the internet is a meat grinder for the human soul, then rekt is a 400-page reminder to keep your hands (and your goddamn eyes) away from the gears. Gonzalez isn’t subtle about his themes, but who needs subtlety when you’re talking about toxic masculinity, AI-generated nightmares, and the moral decay that happens when your browser history reads like a police report? Grief horror is nothing new, but rekt takes the concept and straps it to a jet engine. Sammy isn’t just grieving Ellery; he’s grieving himself, his past, his possible futures. His descent into the bowels of internet depravity is an act of self-destruction, a digital form of cutting where the scars aren’t on his skin but in his perception of reality. Watching death videos doesn’t just numb him—it reshapes him. He isn’t just watching horror; he’s being rewritten by it.

Sammy’s journey is also a grim examination of how the internet radicalizes lost, lonely men. He’s not some 4chan basement troll from the start—he’s a normal guy with trauma, a dude who starts by peeking into the abyss and eventually gets dragged inside. His story is a cautionary tale about how online isolation festers, how grief and guilt can warp into something unrecognizably monstrous, and how unchecked digital consumption can make you a participant in your own downfall.

In rekt, the internet serves as the monster in the closet, the demon under the bed, the thing that whispers, Just one more click. Chinsky, the dark web site Sammy stumbles onto, feels less like a malevolent entity, one that evolves, predicts, and consumes. Gonzalez taps into a fundamental fear of the digital age: that we aren’t in control of what we see. That we’re being watched. That our deepest, most fucked-up impulses are being catered to, curated, and fed back to us.

Gonzalez writes like someone who has seen too much and isn’t afraid to make you see it too. His prose is unrelenting, visceral, and disturbingly immersive. The book reads like a mix between Chuck Palahniuk, Creepypasta threads, and a transcript from an FBI internet crimes division case file. The pacing is relentless, pulling you deeper into Sammy’s unraveling mind until you’re trapped with him in a nightmarish freefall.

There are moments where the novel slows, and yes, some might argue that certain passages drag—but that’s the point. The book mirrors the experience of doomscrolling: the hypnotic, inescapable pull of something awful that you know you should look away from but can’t.

Strengths

Unflinching Horror: Gonzalez absolutely embraces disturbing content. The book is visceral, relentless, and at times, genuinely stomach-churning.
A Relatable (If Deeply Flawed) Protagonist: Sammy isn’t some edge-lord caricature; he’s disturbingly real. His descent is believable, and that’s what makes it horrifying.
Relevant as Hell: This book taps into fears that feel uncomfortably current—AI-generated horror, radicalization, online addiction.
Emotional Weight: This isn’t just about the horror of gore—it’s about the horror of grief, of being lost, of not knowing how to climb out of the abyss.

Criticisms

Pacing Gets Murky in the Middle: There’s a stretch where the momentum slows, and while thematically it makes sense (mirroring Sammy’s increasing detachment), it may cause some restlessness.
Not for Everyone (Which is a Strength and a Weakness): If you have a weak stomach or a lingering sense of optimism about humanity, this book is gonna wreck you (pun intended).
The Ending Will Divide Readers: Some will love it (I personally was into it), some will hate it, but no one is walking away indifferent.

rekt is not a book you read lightly. It’s a book that grabs you by the skull and forces your eyes open to witness the worst parts of human nature—online and off. Gonzalez has crafted something uniquely horrifying, a novel that doesn’t just tell a scary story but becomes one. It’s bleak, brutal, and borderline dangerous in its ability to make you think about every link you’ve ever clicked.

Is it a fun read? Fuck no.

Is it a brilliant one? Absolutely.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to clear my browser history and tape over my webcam. Again.