rekt

Sammy is chronically online and emotionally numb, mourning his girlfriend Ellery's death, when he's lured onto a dark-web site by a mystery user to view the moment her car was hit. But who would show him her final moments, and why are there so many other videos of people who haven't died yet? Sammy learns there's a pool of creators betting on the probability of AI-generated death scenarios; now, revenge is his driver as the web leaks a frenetic bloodbath right into his world. The story explodes into fragments of ultraviolence as Sammy joins others to avenge their loved ones. Gonzalez, in his debut, perfectly tees up the reader with tiny, seemingly insignificant clues in the novel's first half then delivers shock, gore, and twists galore in the second, including a knife twist of an ending where readers must piece together the outcome through a series of online posts, text messages, and emails. With the adrenaline of The Running Man, the violence and cruelty of the Squid Game series, and a dash of Fight Club, Sammy's story links toxic masculinity and the rise of shock videos on the 2000s internet. Like clicking links online, Gonzalez's world is addictive, compulsive, and impossible to leave--precisely because it could be our own.

Gonzalez (Land Shark) delivers a deeply cynical splatterpunk exploration of the numbing effects of digital violence. Sammy Dominguez is a teenager when he first encounters the grimy underbelly of the internet via online forums full of gory urban legends. He copes with his unstable home life by writing and sharing stories about a creepypasta monster known as "Wax Man," a creature that stalks sad children and mummifies them in wax when they cry. At 26, following the death of his girlfriend and the deletion of his stories from the forum, he's on the verge of killing himself when a forum user named Haruspx invites him to visit a mysterious dark website full of deepfake snuff films. There, Sammy discovers a video of the car accident that killed his girlfriend. He becomes obsessed with watching and rewatching the video--and uncovering who made it. Gonzalez strives to shock with crude jokes and depictions of extreme violence (including against an infant), but balances the novel's baser instincts with crisp storytelling and a well-shaded cast that readers will want to follow through the complex and propulsive plot. The intense ugliness of the subject matter and dark sense of humor won't be for everyone, but extreme horror fans who grew up on the internet will find plenty to hold their attention. (Mar.)