The Institute: A Novel (vuoden 2020 painos)

Stephen King's 2019 novel The Institute relates the story of a group of young kids who are abducted from their homes and brought to the so-called institute, a place where they are experimented on. What unites those kids is that they have some form of psychic ability like telekinesis or telepathy. The institute tries to amplify their powers and use them for clandestine missions.

A large part of the novel is spent outlining life at the institute, which includes descriptions of daily life as well as the experiments that are carried out. Protagonist Luke Ellis, a smart young boy, wants to find out what happened to his parents when he was abducted. He quickly makes friends with the other kids at the institute only to learn that they are sent to so-called back half to undergo different experiments and finally serve their purpose. It appears that the only way out of the institute is death. Led by Luke, the kids start a revolt to destroy the institute. Will they succeed? Will they be able to escape?

I found the novel quite intriguing but rather lengthy. While said length is usually something I like about Stephen King's novels I found this one could have done with fewer pages. It was not that I was utterly bored, but the novel did not manage to grip me over its whole length. Still, an enjoyable read. 3.5 stars. ( )

Amazing! One of ten best King books I’ve read. It was almost the perfect length- it did not drag on like some of his books tend to do, it did not get crazy weird at the end (just a bit weird), and I love that it was an ending, however sad. I love that things were tied up nicely...as that isn’t always the case with Stephen King. ( )

No matter if the content is full of rabid dogs, demonic entities in an apocalyptic landscape, or a gunslinger traveling among parallel universes, you know when you're reading a book written by Stephen King. The Institute is no exception.

It's not scary. Let's get that out of the way upfront. But just because a book with King's name on it isn't scary doesn't mean it isn't a great story.

I will admit that at first I was confused about why Tim, a man who skips a plane ride on instinct and is eventually glad he did, took up so much of the front-end narrative of the book. We don't actually meet the main protagonist Luke or The Institute for which the book is named until well into the story. Tim, the adult protagonist, is there for a while, then he's gone for a really long stretch of story. When he finally reappeared for the third act, I had to look back to the beginning to remember whether he was the same character I'd met at the beginning of the tale.

Other than that minor issue, The Institute is solid King storytelling. There are books in his library that don't strike a chord with me, stuff that I read but never connected with and therefore don't remember much about. For example, I read Cell and Lisey's Story long ago, but I can't tell you a damn thing about what happens in either of them. Ditto Desperation and its companion The Regulators. Then there are others like It, or 11/22/63, or Pet Sematary, or The Gunslinger that I can remember vivid details about even though I haven't touched the titles themselves in more than a decade. The Institute is going to be one of those types of books for me. It connected with me, and I'm already looking forward to the inevitable screen adaptation. ( )

Surprisingly good. Like Firestarter, but better written. ( )

This was a solid adventure story that moved along at a brisk pace. I was expecting something a bit more horror-tinged when I started reading it, but instead this was mostly a fantasy about terrible things happening to telepathic and telekinetic kids. This was also the closest King has come to a young adult novel since maybe Eyes of the Dragon, although it was fairly profane, so maybe that would disqualify it in some circles. King sticks the landing here, and I enjoyed it a lot. ( )