The Institute by Stephen King

Stephen King has become one of my favorite authors in the last few years, but I have found that I enjoy his earlier writings to his more recent ones. Not that I haven't enjoyed them, but none of them have brought the emotion out of me the way that The Shining, IT, or The Stand (and others) have. And then I read The Institute. The emotions I felt in this brilliant novel include, but are not limited to: fear, anger, sadness, happiness, and hope. Just as when I read The Stand, I needed to know what happened in the end, but I feared the end because then it would be over.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Luke Ellis is an exceptionally bright kid; at just 12, he is taking the SATs and picking out colleges. But he is also just a kid who loves to play HORSE with his dad and screw around with his friend. That all changes one night when a black SUV arrives at his house, kills his parents, and takes him away into the night. He wakes up in The Institute, a place where kids with special abilities-telekinesis and telepathy-are kept and tested; for what, they don't know. Luke knows that he must escape this place quickly, and help as many of his new friends as possible. But no one has ever escaped. In fact, no one has ever left.

The book starts with Tim Jamieson, a former police officer for Sarasota PD looking for a fresh start and finds it in a small town in East Jesus Nowhere. I knew Tim would be important, and I really loved his story from the beginning. But I wanted to know about the Institute and Luke. I also wanted to know how Tim was going to play into the larger story, and when the plot switches to Luke and the other characters, I kept waiting for Tim to come back into the picture. Knowing that King always keeps my guessing, my brain was working overtime from the very first page trying to put pieces together, even before I had everything to work with. King is a master at pulling the reader in that quickly, and I fall for it every time.

The characters in the book are magnificent. Each person you are introduced to feels like a real person, and the further into the book you go, the more concrete they become. The kids from the Institute won me over instantly upon reading their descriptions. I wanted nothing more than to wrap each of them in my arms and protect them, save them even. I hated with a passion the doctors and caretakers of the Institute. I wanted to ask them how they would feel if this was being done to them, their children, their siblings, their special someone. When Luke and Avery are subjected to the immersion chamber, I wanted them to suffer as they were making these children suffer. I wanted to know how they could justify their actions, even if it was for the "greater good."

(Source: Giphy)

I cried. This isn't the first King novel I have cried in, and it probably won't be the last. But knowing King, I knew that not every character I loved would walk away from this. Each time a new character showed up, regardless of where they fell in my feelings toward love or hate, I wondered if they would make it to the final page alive and what their ending would be. Granted, none of them tore me up as some of the endings in The Stand, but these were just as hard. I wish I could say more, but this book is too new. Just know that there are some very sad endings and it might do you well to have a tissue on hand. On the other hand, there are some who don't deserve life and still get to walk away, at least for the time being. But as it says on the book cover, the good guys don't always win.

"They maintained their circle until the end, and as the roof came down, Avery Dixon had one final thought, both clear and calm: I loved having friends." (p. 520)

(Source: Giphy)

But what I love most about this book is that it really makes you think. At what point is doing something for the greater good no longer good. If you kill one person but save five, is it okay? If you know a person will grow up to be evil, is it alright to put an end to them before they have a chance to do wrong? What if by doing that, you open up the possibilities of a greater evil? These are questions I asked myself through the book, but especially at the end. Many people over the course of history have done something that they thought was good, and it wasn't. Hitler never saw anything wrong with his way of thinking. Neither did Mussolini, or Stalin, the Roman empire. There are plenty of examples of evil people and groups through the years. But we can also never know what would have happened if their evil hadn't come to fruition. And we will never know, at least while we are breathing. If this book does not get you questioning the struggle between good and evil, you're reading it wrong.

I am so glad that I read this book. I love books that make me think and feel at the same time, and that's not something all books make you do. King is a brilliant author and I will continue reading his books.

(Source: Giphy)

Rating: 9/10
Author: Stephen King
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Fantasy
Dates Read: October 1-4, 2019