The Green Mile

Stephen King

Summary:

At Cold Mountain Penitentiary, along the lonely stretch of cells known as the Green Mile, killers such as ‘Billy the Kid’ Wharton and the possessed Eduard Delacroix await death strapped in ‘Old Sparky’. Guards as decent as Paul Edgecombe and as sadistic as Percy Wetmore watch over them.

But good or evil, innocent or guilty, none has ever seen the brutal likes of the new prisoner, John Coffey, sentenced to death for raping and murdering two young girls. Is Coffey a devil in human form? Or is he a far, far different kind of being?

Plot:

This story is definitely very interesting. King’s writing is superb and sucks you in from the first page. The story is brutal and will have you shivering with fear and horror. There are very few dull moments, but you have to remember that this book was published in six installments. This means that there are a bit of repetitiveness. However, this never really bothered me as the narrator, Paul Edgecombe, is a very old man, and this made him seem a little more realistic. There are very few light, humorous moments, and the parts that do make you smile are quickly tainted by some horrific event.

Characters:

There are too many characters that are way too complicated to go into all of them. However, it is very interesting how King portrays the different killers that are sentenced to death at Cold Mountain. They’re all completely different from each other. Delacroix is a happy, optimistic French guy, Wharton is a crazy, ruthless killer, and Coffey is childish and ignorant. The different wardens are also very interesting, but i found the prisoners fascinating.

 Who should read this:

13+, and I would definitely recommend caution. The violence is pretty extreme, and King’s writing is brutally honest and descriptive. He doesn’t leave much for the imagination. This is a very good story, there’s no doubt about that, and if you like stories that will give you chills and haunt you long after you stopped reading, you might like this one. Not for anyone who’s looking for a happy ending!

My rating:

While I realise that this is a very good book, it’s not exactly my type of story. It didn’t bore me, and I found the characters fascinating, but the violence and horror of it all isn’t my scene. So 3/5.

Quote:

“I’ll tell you something my friend: weird love’s better than no love at all...”