Is The Grip of It Worth Reading?
by Jac Jemc
Ada’s Score
Jac Jemc's debut novel follows a couple who flee to a small town to escape a gambling addiction and find their new house is slowly consuming them — literally and psychologically. Told in alternating perspectives that gradually drift further apart, the novel uses the haunted house as a lens for examining how couples lose each other, how bodies betray their owners, and how denial becomes its own kind of architecture. Jemc writes in precise, charged prose that refuses easy horror conventions, building dread through ambiguity rather than revelation. It is one of the most formally accomplished horror novels of the last decade.
Episode 3“Slow, suffocating, extraordinary. Jemc makes the horror feel like it's happening to your body, not a character's. Haunts you long after.”
The House Is Not the Only Thing Haunted
Jac Jemc's haunted house novel does something most horror doesn't dare — it makes the marriage as unsettling as the supernatural, so you're never quite sure which one is the real source of dread. The house seeps into the bodies and the relationship with a creeping, clinical precision that left me genuinely unnerved. If you want horror that lingers in the bones long after the last page, this is it.
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“Slow, suffocating, extraordinary. Jemc makes the horror feel like it's happening to your body, not a character's. Haunts you long after.”
The House Is Not the Only Thing Haunted
Jac Jemc's haunted house novel does something most horror doesn't dare — it makes the marriage as unsettling as the supernatural, so you're never quite sure which one is the real source of dread. The house seeps into the bodies and the relationship with a creeping, clinical precision that left me genuinely unnerved. If you want horror that lingers in the bones long after the last page, this is it.
Book Details
- Publisher
- FSG Originals
- Published
- January 1, 2017
- Pages
- 288
- Language
- English
Get This Book
Affiliate linksISBN: 9780374536916
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Ada’s Score
4.3
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Grip of It
- Is The Grip of It worth reading?
- Slow, suffocating, extraordinary. Jemc makes the horror feel like it's happening to your body, not a character's. Haunts you long after. Ada rates it 4.3 out of 5.
- How many pages is The Grip of It?
- The Grip of It is 288 pages long — around 5–6 hours at an average reading pace.
