Jac Jemc | THE GRIP OF IT
I'm guilty of it and I'm sure you are too. I am included in the people who browse Netflix 95% of the time and actually watch something 5% of the time. So, I may not be that bad with "Bookstagram", but I still do use a ton of my time to peruse and really dive deep into the Bookstagram community to see what treasures lie out there. After seeing a couple of posts with this really cool and creepy cover, I had to look into THE GRIP OF IT by Jac Jemc and was extremely intrigued. Thank you to FSG Originals for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review. I was not disappointed.
Plot:
The Grip of It tells the eerie story of a young couple haunted by their new home. Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between a lake and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture—claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mold spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julia and James.
Review:
Ghosts! Goblins! Prose? That's right! What we have here my dear readers is a literary novel with a horror plot and domestic thriller at the core of it all. If you are looking for a better combination, don't bother. I've already tried. Jac Jemc has produced a wonderfully twisted and atmospheric novel with a ton of beautifully descriptive language, and did I mention ghosts?
Jemc has wound together a novel with so many deliciously creepy elements, it's hard to know when you need to take a break or when you need to sacrifice sleep to get in a few more pages. Taking a really intriguing twist on the haunted house type of story, the thing that I rather enjoyed the most was that the uncomfortable and creepy things in this novel weren't always necessarily about the house. As I stated, this also has a domestic thriller at the core of this horror novel, which is not only interesting but effective. The relationship of Julie and James as they go through this novel is what was intriguing to me the most. Watching their relationship take all of these twists and turns and seeing them lose trust in themselves and one another was truly the most terrifying part of this novel.
But, it doesn't stop there. Add in some effectively vague sub-plots, a creepy neighbor, unexplained bruises, and children in trees and at some points you will wonder if you're the one being haunted. While this is literacy at it's finest, it's nice to see such beautiful language at the heart of a horror novel, making the journey of this novel even more special than it already has. With intense and terrifying aspects leaving behind the gore factor, I found this novel to be tense and uncomfortably delicious. This is my first true horror novel and it surely won't be my last. If I couldn't enjoy this one more than I did, I approached the final line and a devilish grin formed on my lips. Jac Jemc, I cannot wait to hear more from you.
Rating: 4/5
Plot:
The Grip of It tells the eerie story of a young couple haunted by their new home. Julie and James settle into a house in a small town outside the city where they met. The move—prompted by James’s penchant for gambling, his inability to keep his impulses in check—is quick and seamless; both Julie and James are happy to leave behind their usual haunts and start afresh. But this house, which sits between a lake and forest, has plans for the unsuspecting couple. As Julie and James try to settle into their home and their relationship, the house and its surrounding terrain become the locus of increasingly strange happenings. The architecture—claustrophobic, riddled with hidden rooms within rooms—becomes unrecognizable, decaying before their eyes. Stains are animated on the wall—contracting, expanding—and map themselves onto Julie’s body in the form of bruises; mold spores taint the water that James pours from the sink. Together the couple embark on a panicked search for the source of their mutual torment, a journey that mires them in the history of their peculiar neighbors and the mysterious residents who lived in the house before Julia and James.
Review:
Ghosts! Goblins! Prose? That's right! What we have here my dear readers is a literary novel with a horror plot and domestic thriller at the core of it all. If you are looking for a better combination, don't bother. I've already tried. Jac Jemc has produced a wonderfully twisted and atmospheric novel with a ton of beautifully descriptive language, and did I mention ghosts?
Jemc has wound together a novel with so many deliciously creepy elements, it's hard to know when you need to take a break or when you need to sacrifice sleep to get in a few more pages. Taking a really intriguing twist on the haunted house type of story, the thing that I rather enjoyed the most was that the uncomfortable and creepy things in this novel weren't always necessarily about the house. As I stated, this also has a domestic thriller at the core of this horror novel, which is not only interesting but effective. The relationship of Julie and James as they go through this novel is what was intriguing to me the most. Watching their relationship take all of these twists and turns and seeing them lose trust in themselves and one another was truly the most terrifying part of this novel.
But, it doesn't stop there. Add in some effectively vague sub-plots, a creepy neighbor, unexplained bruises, and children in trees and at some points you will wonder if you're the one being haunted. While this is literacy at it's finest, it's nice to see such beautiful language at the heart of a horror novel, making the journey of this novel even more special than it already has. With intense and terrifying aspects leaving behind the gore factor, I found this novel to be tense and uncomfortably delicious. This is my first true horror novel and it surely won't be my last. If I couldn't enjoy this one more than I did, I approached the final line and a devilish grin formed on my lips. Jac Jemc, I cannot wait to hear more from you.
Rating: 4/5
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