Reviews - The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel

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3.89k reviews for:

The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel

Stephen King

4.42 AVERAGE

melly420's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional 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: Complicated

tomjcarle021's review against another edition

4.75

dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The Green Mile is an intentionally slow march to its conclusion. While the pacing may feel drawn out at first, it gradually becomes clear that this deliberate "dragging of feet" reflects the experience of death row inmates themselves, clinging to the hope that their sentence might be delayed just one more day. This slow build is essential, setting the stage for an emotional and powerful surge of exposition and development in the final sections of the novel.

At its core, The Green Mile explores what it means to be moral in an immoral world—and the burden of recognizing that disparity. The contrast between characters like John Coffey and Paul Edgecomb versus Percy Wetmore and Brad Dolan is striking. John and Paul are gifted with perception and healing, yet they are punished by the world for their empathy. Percy and Brad, meanwhile, enjoy social privilege and superficial charm but act with cruelty and narcissism.

Through this story, Stephen King invites readers to wrestle with deep questions about justice, human nature, and the high cost of goodness. It's a haunting, thought-provoking journey that lingers long after the final page.

Content Warnings

lefttoread's review against another edition

5.0

“There are pieces of them still in there ... I hear them screaming.” - John Coffey - “Like the drink, only not spelled the same way”
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This has been on my to be read list for a while now and many people have told me to watch the film, I wouldn’t watch the film until I had read the book though, you know how it is right? Well I went into the book knowing VERY LITTLE about it and to be honest I wasn’t expecting a lot, but what I received was amazing, really epic writing by Stephen King.
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“I’m tired of people being ugly to each other.”
I loved nearly every character in this book and hated one or two, but the characters I hated made so much of the book, they needed to be there and King wrote them so, so well. I think this may be my favourite of his work so far.
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“Baby Jesus, meek and mild, pray for me, an orphan child. Be my strength, be my friend, be with me until the end. Amen.” - John Coffey
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All I’ve got to say is this is the first book that has actually made me sob. My heart got broken, broken and broken again.. then it was stitched up a little then it got tore right back open.. I might need a while to heal.
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All you’ve got to do now is read The Green Mile if you haven’t already.