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.

12 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.

boum reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

Review of 'The Institute' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Nice story. Once again a page-turner by Stephen King.
Some inconsistencies and questions could have been answered but I guess it would have slowed the pacing of the story telling.

Gary reviewed The Institute by Stephen King

Review of 'The Institute' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

It's a little difficult to think of a book by Stephen King that hasn't completely gripped my imagination and earned a rare 5 star review. The Institute was one that makes me wish for a special 6-star award. The characters, story, the suspense, action, and the intrigue were top notch and hypnotized me like a psychic kid might, if there were really an Institute out there. And maybe there is...