Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - The Green Mile

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The Green Mile by Stephen King

17 reviews

sweetlilly93's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Look, is it a perfect book? Of course not, it's written by Stephen King.
Did the story suck me in until the very last word and had me staring at a wall for two days (in a good way)? Yes.

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rat_leoo's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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viceveritas's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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a_augustine12's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The Green Mile was a fantastic book. However, because it’s not typically the kind of story I read, I struggled through it. The movie is practically spot on, and I will continue to watch the movie again and again.

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gudrqa's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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tifftastic87's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

It feels slightly odd to give this a five start and then say it's not my favorite book by Stephen King, but here we are. I genuinely do think that the Green Mile is one of King's greatest books and it is a five star read for me on this second time around. This one always stands out to me because it is one of the rare cases for a King work where the movie holds up for me. That being said I do have some criticisms.

I really wish the only black character in the book hadn't been King's typically magical being and that we didn't have to have him be magical for his incarceration to be in question. I do like that King made some comments early on that minorities in prison are rarely given the same freedoms, or excuses, or even pardons that white people are. But some of the use of Coffey in this story is hard to hear because not only is he incredibly large, he's incredibly dim witted. He is simply a being of instinct with a deeper sense of the world than the rest of us. He is almost childlike in some aspects, being afraid of the dark, not being able to tie his shoes etc. It is uncomfortable at times to hear it that way.

The other thing is that listening to it as an adult versus reading it as a teen I really wanted Paul to stand up to Brad a bit more. There never was any consequences for him and that just didn't sit right with me. But then, rarely are there consequences in life.

Criticisms out of the way, the episodic writing really made the whole feel of the book different than most other King books. Usually we sit with the main character for half to two-thirds of the story before anything really happens and we just get to know them. But with an episodic story like this, you have to get to know them organically and to me that really felt like Paul was sitting down and telling me the story of the fall of 1932 on the green mile. It felt comforting, like a story my own grandparents would have told me around a campfire. Apart from all the brutal murdering that is.

It really felt King did some work here to make criticisms of our prison system, nepotism, and, of course, capitol punishment. There is some light commentary on how race plays into a lot of these things and I think for a book published in 1996 by an older white man, that is maybe not as common as it would be today. While the commentary was clunky and not without it's fair share of white saviourism, it was nevertheless, at least broached.

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