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A review by aoki_reads
It's Me, Charlie by C.M. Guidroz
2.0
I literally read the warning about spit. Spit is absolutely repulsive to me. I still continued to read the book, knowing I’d be gagging over every intense mention of spit. A #spitcup, though? Some nasty shit. I just had to mention it again. I clearly read the warning at the start of the book, so no, this is not why I’m rating It’s Me, Charlie a 2 out of 5 stars.
The story itself is incredibly powerful, especially in the age of social media. Scary, for that matter. Charlie is fanatically obsessed with Jessie, an indie author who writes smut novels. He knows absolutely everything about her, why? Well yeah, he reads all of her books.. but mostly because he catfishes Jessie. Through his social media accounts, Charlie morphs into a cute girl, becoming Jessie’s “booktok/bookstagram bestie.” He learns the ins and outs of Jessie’s life, her goals and ambitions, and everything else there is to know. Jessie trusts Charlie. Little does Jessie know, her book bestie is really a “he,” and he’s a big sack of shit to make it worse. He wants to kidnap Jessie and give her the life she’s never had. He wants to be her dream man, like the ones she writes about. But with a sick and delusional obsession and a face only a mother could love, you’ll see how well all of that plays out.
Now that that’s been said, I love a well-written extreme horror book. This was extreme horror without the “well-written” part. And that is not me attacking the abundance of grammatical errors here, but rather my distaste for the novella itself. While elements were extreme, it was boring. No development of any kind. I like my extreme horror novels to have some sort of framework, detail. I’ve realized that just reading a bunch of nasty nonsense doesn’t satisfy me. There was potential here for such a great story, even packed into a short 60 pages. It just didn’t do it for me. You can read it for yourself, it’s short.
The book is disgusting though, stars for that. I did enjoy the idea of an obsessive catfish, and that this specifically took place within the book community. We often feel communities and individuals built from the love of books are sincere and well-intentioned. But clearly, there can be darkness and danger in every space.
Btw, I’m never looking at a cup from Taco Bell the same again.
The story itself is incredibly powerful, especially in the age of social media. Scary, for that matter. Charlie is fanatically obsessed with Jessie, an indie author who writes smut novels. He knows absolutely everything about her, why? Well yeah, he reads all of her books.. but mostly because he catfishes Jessie. Through his social media accounts, Charlie morphs into a cute girl, becoming Jessie’s “booktok/bookstagram bestie.” He learns the ins and outs of Jessie’s life, her goals and ambitions, and everything else there is to know. Jessie trusts Charlie. Little does Jessie know, her book bestie is really a “he,” and he’s a big sack of shit to make it worse. He wants to kidnap Jessie and give her the life she’s never had. He wants to be her dream man, like the ones she writes about. But with a sick and delusional obsession and a face only a mother could love, you’ll see how well all of that plays out.
Now that that’s been said, I love a well-written extreme horror book. This was extreme horror without the “well-written” part. And that is not me attacking the abundance of grammatical errors here, but rather my distaste for the novella itself. While elements were extreme, it was boring. No development of any kind. I like my extreme horror novels to have some sort of framework, detail. I’ve realized that just reading a bunch of nasty nonsense doesn’t satisfy me. There was potential here for such a great story, even packed into a short 60 pages. It just didn’t do it for me. You can read it for yourself, it’s short.
The book is disgusting though, stars for that. I did enjoy the idea of an obsessive catfish, and that this specifically took place within the book community. We often feel communities and individuals built from the love of books are sincere and well-intentioned. But clearly, there can be darkness and danger in every space.
Btw, I’m never looking at a cup from Taco Bell the same again.