I know everything about her, I've been her "book bestie" for over a year now. I've read every book she has ever published. The books that tell me every fantasy she has, the books that tell me exactly what she wants. She doesn't know who I am behind the screen, but I don't' think she will care much once I show her that I am the perfect man for her. Women have rejected me in the past, but I've studied Jessie so much there is no way I could get it wrong this time.
What happens when the person you thought was just an online friend turns out to be an obsessive monster. You never know who is truly behind the screen when you are engaging with people online. Especially, things like "bookstagram" where the community is so welcoming. What happens when your "book bestie" falls in love with you and will stop at nothing to show you just how deep that love is.
Charlie has been posing as a woman in the book community to gain the trust and friendship of the woman he has been obsessing over, Jessie. Jessie is a self-published author of smutty or erotic, books who is just trying to get her books out there in a massive genre. What Jessie doesn't know is that her biggest fan has been waiting for the perfect time to meet her and make all of her fantasies come true.
Are you ready to meet Charlie?
Author Note: 18+ WARNING! This short story is considered EXTREME HORROR, there are GRAPHIC SITUATIONS! This book is disgusting, and you probably shouldn't read it. But if you are still interested in meeting Charlie, please be aware that you were warned. YOU WERE WARNED.
C. M. Guidroz's It's Me, Charlie is devastatingly bad.
Like, I am SO THIRSTY for extreme horror books that are both well-written and well-written by women that I probably broke the sound barrier flying so fast to Amazon to purchase this damn thing. I even forked over the $6.99 for the paperback, despite its 64 pages, because I like supporting small authors.
I wanted It's Me, Charlie to be good for so many reasons that it actually hurts me a little to be here writing about how wretched it was.
My biggest complaint, and it's one I have for like 90% of the extreme horror that I've read, is that the writing is terrible. By terrible, I mean that this little book is full of typos and grammatical errors, it's annoyingly repetitive (especially when considering page count), and it consists of almost exclusively telling instead of showing. Oh, and what little dialogue is present, is not just formatted incorrectly, but is also comically unbelievable.
I get that extreme horror is often self-published. I get that self-published authors often can't find/afford an editor. I get it, I really do. And I suppose I would rather have people publishing unedited, badly written extreme horror than no extreme horror...
But as a consumer who paid for a product, I will never be able to ignore writing this bad and this full of errors.
I mean, just read the back of the book! There are at least 3 typos that I spotted, and they are perfectly replicated in the Goodreads description (as of the date of this review), so see if you can find them for yourself.
Reading the back of It's Me, Charlie will also give you a good sense of how repetitive C. M. Guidroz's writing is. The word "book" (including Bookstagram and bookworm) is written 11 times there. 11 times!! That's just too much!
There so many sentences in this book that repeat the same word twice that I would actually call it a hallmark of Guidroz's writing. It got on my nerves very quickly. A 64 page book should feel short and sweet, like a jab. It's Me, Charlie felt more like a slow-mo slap that missed entirely and just continued to spin endlessly.
This book's repetitiveness plus its typos and grammatical errors plus all of its telling instead of showing really made it unpleasant to read. I actually considered DNFing it, but decided to push on because, well, I paid for the damn thing.
My next complaint is about the premise of this book, which is actually the best thing about it. But here's the kicker. Nothing promised on the back of this book actually happens on page. And I'm so sad about it!
It's Me, Charlie is about an obsessed fan who catfished the friendship of a semi-popular Bookstagram / Smuttok author by pretending to be a woman and yet, it does not contain one single exchange between Charlie and the girl to establish their relationship. Not one! There are no scenes of them communicating or interacting online and hardly any lines of dialogue once they are in the same room together.
When the book starts, Charlie has already done all the catfishing and already has a plan to kidnap the girl. Also, not only is his plan stupidly simple, but it goes off without a hitch, which is just... a missed opportunity. I can't help but think of how much better this story would have been if we had been shown all of the interesting things that happened off page instead of what we got.
Another hallmark of Guidroz's writing is that it is almost exclusively telling. There's very little description of, well, anything. No atmosphere, no real setting descriptors, no solid character descriptions, no detail, not even a real exploration of Charlie's thought process or motivations. He's like your basic, gross and sweaty incel with mommy issues and that is too much of a trope to be interesting without more insight.
In all honesty, Charlie comes across as more of a bumbling fool designed to be laughed at than a violent psychopath to be feared. I can't imagine this guy being cunning enough to manipulate and charm a bunch of people on the internet or to plan and execute a kidnapping. He can't even go into a sex shop to get "supplies" without acting like an embarrassing weirdo.
Also, why are we reading about Charlie going to work, grocery shopping, buying a dildo, and cleaning his house?? That's like, everyday boring shit that nobody cares about. Why would you show me that and not any of his interactions online or even flashbacks of his past issues with his mother? Ugh.
My last complaint is that It's Me, Charlie is that the extreme horror elements are probably the weakest I've ever read. There was one decent, unique gross out element (the spit cup), but the scene basically cuts to black and we aren't really shown anything.
And I could be wrong on this because I wasn't reading very carefully by the end, but I don't think Charlie really does anything bad to the girl, other than make her drink what was in the cup and tie her up. And that's just... not extreme.
It's Me, Charlie by C. M. Guidroz was devastatingly bad. I'm still determined to find some well-written extreme horror, but this wasn't it in the slightest.
This will be one of the rare times I don't rate a book. It was disturbing and had one of the most disgusting scenes that I've ever read in my life, to the point where I actually felt nauseous and I just don't think this kind of extreme horror is for me.
I’m a little to conflicted on a rating, so I am going to simply offer my thoughts in a review only.
This was a brutal story that I read as part of a group read in the Extreme Horror group. Their thoughts and interactions made the reading experience a lot of fun.
This extreme horror story has a fairly simple, straightforward plot. The authored poured all the creative energies in creating the gross-out images and developments. That’s fine if that is the thrust of the book. And boy did it have some gross-outs. I’ve got a strong stomach and even this book tested it. The book didn't pretend to be anything else. This is not a book for everyone. Take the warnings seriously.
I could not tell if the author wanted some of the lines to be funny or just tell a really disturbing story. That being said, I thought the author did a good job of capturing the MC’s voice and the delusions that drove him. The author set the tone right away. The book features an MC, Charlie, who has—well, let’s just call it a flexible idea of hygiene and morality. It was particularly effective—in my view of
It doesn’t give me any satisfaction to say this, but I have to candidly admit the book could have used some polish.
Truly floored by how bad this was. It feels like the author furiously typed all 55 pages in a horny, late-night frenzy and uploaded it the second they were “done.” I understand this is self-published. But with so many typos, errors, and issues, it’s hard to believe this was given even one pass of edits. Honestly it’s disrespectful to sell this for money.
A stalker with an obsession with a smut indie author pretends to be her book bestie on bookstagram, knowing he’s the man for her and he’s going to make all of her fantasies come true. I no longer trust anyone on the Internet, don’t wanna eat Taco Bell (spit cup 🤢) or spaghetti ever again. Five stars
What a fun little read. It takes about an hour or so to read and it was my first short story that I found seemed to hit the nail on the head. I guess I'm trying to say that it fulfilled its purpose in my eyes as I usually am let down by short stories as I am left either wanting more or seeing the possibility for so much more.
Charlie is a gullible, dim witted person who is very unattractive and overweight. He also has psoriasis and it brought to mind a guy I worked with who had real bad psoriasis and didn't take care of the issue at all. He was a great guy but not when it came to looks and you were always leary of being near him because of all the flaking that went on.
So Charlie really has no shot at any women due to his mental capacity and his looks. The story is told from his perspective and due to his child like gullibility there are some really funny moments in what is really a distubing story. I did this as part of a buddy read and many felt the same way.
So having struck out with women playing the nice guy he realizes that the nice guy approach doesn't really work. He then discovers an author who is quite attractive and writes smut. The author gets into some wild stuff like getting spit on and spit in the mouth. Reading this as well as all the comments in what appears to be a forum similar to goodreads leads poor Charlie to believe this is what women want. Treat them like garbage and you are in! So Charlie whose name is not Charlie (and we never find out who he is) creates the persona of Charlie, a female reviewer. He becomes bestie's with the author and becomes a champion of the author on the forum. He cleverly holds a contest rigged for the author to win and when she does he needs her address to send her the winnings. Once he finds out where she lives he decides to move nearby and concocts a plan to kidnap the author. Now Charlie will tell you that "he is no rapist" but that he fully expects the author to fall in love with him. After all by kidnapping her he will allow her to write full time and become a published success versus the limited self publisher that she it. Charlie has his dreams and thinks they are coming true.
So once things get in motion it is quite a roller coaster. Again scary in reality and lightened up by the story being told through Charlie's eyes and his perceptions which are not in sink at all with reality.
Again a fun little read. Some in our group did not like the fact that Charlie narrated the story and if you read this you will understand. I had no real issue with it all as to me there are lots of ways to tell stories and this one was told in a funny quirky way while at the same time dealing with some pretty sick stuff.
Give it a try, I recommend it and for most here I would assume it can be knocked off in an hour or so. Four stars and I look forward to more from this author.
"She even says she needs a monster like that. I will be her monster, her stalker, her morally gray, possessive man that she has been longing for. I can be all those things for her. She won’t understand at first, but I will make her understand."
Meeting someone online isn't anything new. Some of my best friends came from online book communities and I can never see my life without them. That may have been how I met my main squeeze. But you always have to use caution because you never know who you really are talking to.
If I read this book before I started making online friends, I would have stayed far far away from the internet. I would be clueless about what the internet even was. It really stopped me in my tracks and I'm sick to my stomach. My skin was crawling, my stomach was turning, and the look on my face was one of pure disgust. These sick f**ks exist out in the world.
Even though this was a really short book, it still took me longer to finish. This was so revolting that I had to stop reading it a few times. A few of the scenes were over the top and I just couldn't handle it all at once. I needed a shower (more like ten) after finishing this. Ugh! That end though! That was the icing! Don't forget your fork...
It's Me, Charlie was a decent read but one I had to read in parts. It was twisted and really dark. Every time I see Taco Bell I'm going to gag. Now you all have to promise me that you'll all be safe and careful while online. Promise me!!!!
It's Me, Charlie is a story of obsession, survival and horror. A quick read that made me laugh and gag for an hour.
This book really shows the dangers of social media. Anybody could pretend to be someone they're not to gain access to your life. People like Charlie has a different kind of twisted reality and that makes them all the more dangerous.
If you ever decide to read this, I think that you'll throw up not only once. I know I did.
It’s Me, Charlie, by C.M. Guidroz is a funny horror story. Charlie doesn't know what love is. He's insecure about how he looks, so he hides behind a fake social media profile to find love. He falls in love with Jessie, an author of erotica. So he decides to study her books, so that everything will be perfect for when she comes to live with him. Of course, Jessie doesn't know about Charlie's delusional plans. Charlie's delusions made me laugh.
This is so dark and twisted! It’s absolutely amazing! Anyone who has a booktok, bookstagram or any kind of following on social media needs to read It’s Me, Charlie! This book hooks you right from page one and will make you sick to your stomach throughout! Some of this author’s best work to date!
i’m sorry but this is without a doubt the worst novel ever written and i do not exaggerate when i say that. i have never in my life read something so badly written, so uncomfortably amateurish, that has somehow managed to get to print.
to start with, the author has misspelt Louisiana, her home state, in bold font, in her authors bio on the literal cover of the book. need i say more about what that says for the novel itself.
the content of the book is laden with grammatical & spelling errors, and whilst i’m aware of the struggles of getting published and how horror authors more often than not do turn to self publication, there must’ve been at least one or two people on hand to proof this before going to print.
i also think it’s just a bit cringe that we get an almost goosebumps-esque “you have been warned!!!” on the cover for a horror novel that barely scratches “unsettling” nevermind horrific.
i downloaded this because i saw a tiktok about how good it was and i’ve had to go back and block that content creator for making me experience this. i legitimately am so deeply shocked that someone, anyone, has managed to trudge their way through the 55 pages of this and thought it was even passably decent??
Charlie certainly had a lot of strong delusions about Jessie. She was moving in...like it or not! This book had some real gagging moments...THAT SPIT CUP🤢🤮 The ending was as I expected...I could see it coming...so it wasn't a great surprise🎉 I enjoyed the storyline, it was well written and kept me interested throughout the book. All in all a good read for me.... highly recommended!
No spoilers. 3 stars. Charlie loves Jessie from afar, but he's hoping to get up close and personal real soon...
Jessie is the author of some very kinky sexual novels, and Charlie believes Jessie is crying out for a man...
To enact them with her...
Jessie communicates with Charlie via the internet, and Charlie has led Jessie to believe that Charlie is a female...
Instead of an overweight male cableman...
Jessie is in for a surprise because Charlie has a plan to kidnap her so that he can help her live out her fantasies with him...
He's even purchased her favorite sex toys, and he's been collecting a cup of his spit, which she claimed to like to swallow in a chapter of one of her novels...
I rated this novella 3 stars because it was short and rather predictable. If you like erotica, you'll probably like it.
Disgusting. This book left me hella disturbed, pretty metal though.
I grew up in the prime of the 4Chan to BestGore pipeline so I’m not even easily distressed. So idk what to even say, but there were parts that literally left me so damn nauseated and it was really hard to read. I’m giving it 4 ⭐️ because it did what it set out to do. 🤢👍
*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:What happens when the person you thought was just an online friend turns out to be an obsessive monster. You never know who is truly behind the screen when you are engaging with people online. Especially, things like "bookstagram" where the community is so welcoming. What happens when your "book bestie" falls in love with you and will stop at nothing to show you just how deep that love is.Charlie has been posing as a woman in the book community to gain the trust and friendship of the woman he has been obsessing over, Jessie. Jessie is a self-published author of smutty or erotic, books who is just trying to get her books out there in a massive genre. What Jessie doesn't know is that her biggest fan has been waiting for the perfect time to meet her and make all of her fantasies come true. Release Date: n/a Genre: Extreme Horror Pages: 69 Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
What I Liked: 1. Story is interesting 2. Very quick read 3. Pretty sure I know men like
What I Didn't Like: 1. Didn't care for paragraph format - was confusing 2. Needs an editor
Overall Thoughts: I checked out the negative reviews for this book and it made me feel a little sad for the author. I thought this book was good.
I think the first problem is that people read this book and see EXTREME HORROR and instantly expect a lot of gore/rape/blood. I think there are different levels of extreme horror. What might scare me might not scare you. I found this book horrific in the sense that this person got close to Jessie in such an innocent way that it could happen to anyone. I saw someone said that it was too easy how she handed over her address to Charlie, but people do this all the time on Goodreads/Tiktok/Instagram, so it's not far fetched.
A lot of times I'll read Extreme Horror and yes the gore and violence is there but then there is zero story. I felt like the author did a good job keeping my attention and making me curious how Charlie was going to make Jessie be with him. I like that the story has already begun when he is so far into his delusion that she wants him. Everyone dragging the author through the mud over this but Woom started in the middle of a sex worker showing up and he's already in the middle of his delusion.
The problems I had were that an editor is definitely needed but perhaps with the sales of this book the author can get one and create the story she wanted. My other issue is how the paragraphs are written. At times I found myself confused on who said what because characters words are right next to one another and no indication that another person is talking.
Final Thoughts: A good book to me is one that holds my attention, makes me curious about how it will end, if the characters are believable (within the genre im reading). This book checked all the boxes for me. I wish people wouldn't gatekeep what extreme horror is.
Recommend For: • Extreme horror • Revenge stories • Stalker obsession • Novella's • Books read under an hour
The whole concept of ‘not knowing who is on the other side of the screen’ is definitely creepy! But I found this to be kinda underwhelming. Maybe it’s cause I read another extreme horror earlier this month that was 928384x more intense. 🤷🏻♀️
Dark, disturbing, stomach churning, and terrifying! Good short story about the perils of giving out your information to the wrong people on social media.
Even though this a very short book it packed so much into it. As a Bookstagrammer I laughed so much and as an avid reader it gave me everything. Certainly did not disappoint however i would say it has more thriller vibe than horror for myself. C.M Guirdoz knows how to write with all the descriptions of Charlie a very disturbed character to say the least. I do appreciate a female writing a horror/thriller and especially from a male perspective.
As someone who is a part of the book community and has a bookstagram, this concept was fucking terrifying but I could not stop reading.
If you enjoyed You by Caroline Kepnes but want it taken to an extreme horror level, definitely try this one. Super twisted and dark with a killer ending and was great to read in one creepy sitting.
It was just a mess. The story, the setup, everything…. A grammatical nightmare and not sure how it’s considered “extreme” or even “horror” for that matter. I can’t believe I paid for this. Definitely wasn’t for me, but hey, it might be for you.. I really don’t know what else to say lol
i can't believe i spent my well-earned money on this. that's what i get for stepping outside of my kindle unlimited comfort zone when it comes to extreme horror