“I couldn’t help it. I tried to take it back, but it was too late.”
I don’t think anyone can make you care for prisoners on death row quite like Stephen King. (He also seems to have a thing for the wrongfully accused, which is just another level of heartwrenching.)
It’s bold to say this, given King’s EXTENSIVE body of work, but The Green Mile contains some of his most memorable characters – John Coffey (just rip my heart out, okay?), Percy Wetmore (if anyone deserves a sit down with Old Sparky, it’s this guy), Delacroix (I can’t even begin to talk about this one).
I knew the general plot of this book before reading, given the popularity of the movie adaptation (which, as of this writing, I have yet to see). I knew that I was going to have my heart stomped on. I knew that this would stick with me forever.
The Green Mile is just so well done – it’s beautifully written and it hits every emotion. It’s sad, it’s funny, it’s suspenseful. At times, it’s hopeful. Other times? It’s hopeless. A masterpiece through and through. I know a lot of readers avoid King because he’s the master of horror. But some of his best books aren’t in the horror genre at all (11/22/63 comes to mind). The Green Mile is HORRIFYING, but it isn’t horror.
“Time takes it all, time bears it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”
Read with Aimee 