Reviews

It Happened on Negro Mountain by Jeff Carroll

avhollow's review

3.0

An interesting tale about a young girl who is taken in by her parents, her mother just out of rehab and her father a drug dealer, who move out to the country while a war between rival gangs, instigated by her father in order to consolidate more territory for himself, plays itself out. Her parents are verbally and physically abusive towards her, but soon learn that Negro Mountain really is a place where "bad things happen to bad people." The young girl even befriends the spirit of the mountain, and soon begins to exact revenge on those who have wronged her. Carroll creates an interesting mythology for Negro Mountain, an actual place, that blends together the actual folklore about the mountain with supernatural elements. The lack of editing can be distracting at times and the adult characters can come across as caricatures and the dialogue sometimes seems really forced, but if you can push through to the halfway mark, the book is an engrossing enough read.