The Institute by Stephen King

SUMMARY

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.

MY REVIEW

Best horror book for 2019.

Not your usual thriller/ horror type of books by Stephen King. This book is a paranormal/sciencefiction book.

It may remind you the series Stranger Things with the gifted children.
Children who face evil...fight evil...win against evil.

what you did for yourself was what gave you the power.

Children with supernatural powers endure horrible tests and bizarre experiments by ruthless adults at the Institute.
Many people for you to hate there....

working in a place like this destroyed your moral compass

On the other hand the kids. Luke Ellis is one of them. Abducted and imprisoned by a group of adults who think that if they use these children, they will save the world. Luke is determined to understand what they do there and stop them.

you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was.

Stephen King has written some awesome books with kids as protagonists (shine, stand by me, even carrie etc). And this book is not an exception. Obviously this is a writer that understands children and their deepest fears. He knows how to play with his words and analyse their emotions. And you actually believe him. You feel what these children feel.

It is a fast-paced book.
Engaging.
Page-turning.
Smart-written .
Dark.
Twisty.
Disturbing.

It may make you sad and angry.

Don’t say things that invite sorrow

I loved the ending and the way it was delivered. Nothing was rushed and unexplained.

OveraIl a very satisfying experience.

this life we think we’re living isn’t real. It’s just a shadow play, and I for one will be glad when the lights go out on it. In the dark, all the shadows disappear.