#1 in Horror
The Green Mile
- 465
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Bram Stoker Award for Novel
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Our view
Although usually shelved as horror, this is closer to a prison drama with one inexplicable element: an inmate on death row who can heal. That single supernatural strand sets the book apart from other prison stories, and King uses it to win sympathy for people a reader would not expect to feel for. A few scenes chill, but grief is the stronger effect. Expect to be moved more than frightened.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Green Mile is a 1996 serial novel by American writer Stephen King. It tells the story of death row supervisor Paul Edgecombe's encounter with John Coffey, an unusual inmate who displays inexplicable healing and empathetic abilities. The serial novel was released in six volumes before being republished as a single-volume work. The book is an example of magical realism. The subsequent film adaptation was a critical and commercial success. The Green Mile won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in 1996. In 1997, The Green Mile was nominated as Best Novel for the British Fantasy Award and the Locus Award. In 2003 the book was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's "best-loved novel".
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.7 across 847 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 85% of the weight and the score stays at 8.6 — the Horror average of 7.5 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.6 | 110 | 13% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 20 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.8 | 717 | 85% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Green Mile?
It has 465 pages — shorter than 62% of the ranked books in Horror.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Horror — with scores between 7.8 and 8.4, closest to this book.
