Tag: supernatural

By Stephen King

Finished 6/17/25

Wow. Just…wow. This one absolutely lands in my top three Stephen King books. It’s one of those stories that sticks with you long after you close the last page.

At the center of it all is John Coffey, who might be the most beautiful and heartbreaking character King has ever written. He’s a massive man on death row, accused of murdering two young girls, and because of his size—and the racism of the time—it’s easy for everyone to assume the worst. He’s sent to Cold Mountain Penitentiary’s death row block, known by the guards as The Green Mile, where inmates take their final walk to Old Sparky, the electric chair.

But John Coffey is not what anyone expects.

What slowly unfolds is the realization that John has an extraordinary gift—he can heal people, pulling sickness and pain out of them in a way that feels almost supernatural. Some of the moments where this power shows up are among the most moving scenes King has ever written. They’re strange, unsettling, and deeply emotional all at once.

The story is told through Paul Edgecombe, the guard in charge of the Mile, and he’s a great narrator for this kind of story: thoughtful, conflicted, and very human. The other guards are memorable too, each bringing their own personality and moral compass to the job. Even many of the inmates end up being more layered than you expect, which makes the whole world of the book feel lived-in and complicated.

What really makes The Green Mile work, though, is how it blends the supernatural with something deeply human. On the surface it’s a prison story. Underneath, it’s about mercy, justice, cruelty, and the weight of carrying other people’s pain. King leans hard into the idea that appearances can be wildly misleading, and that some of the most gentle souls end up in the darkest places.

It’s also one of King’s most emotional books. Not scary, exactly but more haunting in a moral sense. The kind of story that quietly builds until it hits you in the gut.

There are a lot of memorable turns along the way, and King threads them together in a way that keeps the tension high without ever losing sight of the characters. By the end, the story feels less like a thriller and more like a tragedy you knew was coming but still hoped might somehow turn out differently.

Beautiful, strange, and deeply sad in the best possible way.

Rating: 9.5/10