The Institute

by Stephen King

1st Scribner hardcover edition (US/CAN), 561 pages

English language

Published Sept. 1, 2019 by Scribner.

ISBN:: 978-1-9821-1056-7
OCLC Number:: 1120961626

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.

As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King's gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good versus evil in a world where the good guys don't always win.

18 editions

Jakers reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

This was fun!

4 stars

Content warning Spoiling themes about the book, but not the actual plot.

I think my thoughts about this book were best expressed in a text I sent to a friend: this is like Stephen King wrote a Dean Koontz novel.

It's definitely more sci-fi than horror, which is my favorite subgenre of King stories, and there's a political/anti-war theme that runs through the book that was written pretty well: King thinks drone strikes suck (and he's right) and isn't a fan of youth being stolen by the military for endless wars. The justification for those "drone strikes" (which becomes a play on words later in the book) is shakey and based on questionable intelligence. The people who run The Institute are mostly veterans and former law enforcement, and they engage in barbaric tactics both "on the battlefield" (aka inside a child Gitmo) and when recruiting new soldiers. Those child soldiers are lied to, emptied out, and discarded once they aren't useful anymore.

Very cool job weaving all that in with the narrative, interesting wordplay, and a fun thriller story. The only place it lacks, honestly, is with the mostly typical King ending. The last few chapters were a bit info-dumpy and clearly there to answer the unanswered question of "why", but the ride there was fun and kept me into it.

The series will be interesting to watch, just because I wonder how many of the showrunners really picked up on the underlying themes of the book.

Tl;Dr: it's "Scanners" but as an allegory for the military industrial complex and the war on terror.

Aaron reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

Review of 'The Institute' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A great read that’s very reminiscent of Stranger Things. It’s only the 2nd King book I’ve read but I love his non-horror works.

boysmithers reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

Review of 'The Institute' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Xmas present from the Mrs, nice hardback with the playground on the endpapers.LOVED the "Night Knocker" section and the escape section. Rest was good but not great.

Someology reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

Review of 'The Institute' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Stephen King is always a great story-teller! This book is no different. This is not the typical horror/slasher stereotype of a tale that might come to mind when you hear the author's name. This is one of his "other" books. There is plenty of evil, in a book about imprisoned children. There are innocents suffering, but at the same time, this book seems to be Stephen King having a moment of optimism in the face of darkness. I see two big themes here:

1. It is possible for victims to take back power from abusers by working together.
2. If you could shape the course of the world in ways that you see as beneficial or moral, but at the cost of committing cruelty upon innocents, would you?

Some reviewers have ranted about a handful of sentences in the novel where a character makes an anti-Trump comment. If you are so unable to handle an opposing idea that 5 or 6 sentences in an otherwise excellent novel will make you stop reading or boycott an author, then you have a very sad lack of tolerance, character, and intellect. People who take this path allow a knee-jerk reaction cut themselves off from seeing how Mr. King is making digs at both extreme ends of the political spectrum. Light spoiler:
2b, if you like, is this: Some of the actions taken by those wielding great power in this book might please the deranged absolute left end of the political spectrum, such as planning to murder a strident anti-gay-rights individual, for example. Even though this character is predicted to potentially damage human society on a great scale through his future actions, should he be murdered for the greater good? Should innocents be abused and suffer in order to effect his murder for the greater good? In this book, Mr. King answers "no"!

This is a book with conspiracy, psychic powers, and other entertaining elements, but it is ultimately about the idea that committing wrongs in the name of right should not be done. Mr. King seems to be reminding us that people, groups, and nations who want to stand for the greater good should take care that they do not use the tools of evil to pursue that good.

Also, it's a terrific yarn! Read this book!