The Institute by Stephen King

The Institute

by Stephen King
Published: Scribner, 2019
Pages: 576
Genre: Thriller
Amazon, Goodreads

“It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was.” 

About the book

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”

In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

Review

The Institute is another decent novels in the long line of Stephen King’s works. 

The story focuses on 12-year-old Luke, a genius with limited telekinesis powers who is kidnapped in the middle of the night and taken to a strange complex known only as The Institute. Horrifying experiments are conducted on the children in what is known as Front Half in preparation for an unspeakable purpose. 

The Institute’s storyline is at risk of being too similar to countless other works, namely YA, if not for the in-depth character development and unique personalities of the book’s characters. 

Luke being characterized as a brilliant, wise beyond his years child with quick wit is, in my opinion, the best part of the novel.

King’s writing in The Institute is similar but yet different from his early works. I haven’t read a newer novel of his in a while, so it was a bit strange for me to come across current cultural references. 

Though I did enjoy the novel, there were a few times I felt like the plot dragged on. Some scenes I felt could have been cut down to keep the pace up.

The Institute is a pretty standard Stephen King book that I’d recommend to those who enjoy his works.

RATING (out of five puppies)