The Institute

Personally, this is not one of King's best novels, but I read it in a few days. The story was gripping and there were no boring lengths which made turning the pages hard. In the contrary....I didn't want to wait if and how the small boy will get out of the institute.

In this book you follow along two completely different lives, but yet in the end all fits together perfectly. A captivating book somewhere between fantasy, fiction and psychological thriller. Personally, I found this book not as creepy as Pet Semetary and not as horrifying as The Shining. Maybe a good start for readers who never read a book from King before.

"The Institute" is an exciting and kind of scary story about kids with special powers. The characters are interesting and there are some surprising twists in the plot. I liked the short chapters. Even though it might be a bit slow at times, the overall experience is worth it. If you like mysterious and chilling stories, this one is a good pick.

Gripping, finely written story that keeps you reading through the night, although quite a few storylines have been told already in other books or movies. Only downside is this 12 year old kid who acts like a hardened grown man and unprobably sage for a human this age - a typical King ;)

3.5 stars. The Institute had a really strong start. The whole setup is immediately creepy and intriguing of course; a bunch of kids with unusual abilities being kidnapped and locked away in a secret facility where the adults are doing increasingly horrible things to them. As a Stranger Things fan I was hooked on the premise immediately. I did, however, take a long time to finish this one and considered DNF'ing around the middle. It was a library book I had to keep extending, and the middle, especially once Luke gets out of the Institute, felt pretty slow and meandering to me. The pacing just didn't have the same grip as the suspenseful, interesting, often whimsical beginning; not even close. :/ But then the last third or so really made up for it! Once everything starts coming together, the book becomes genuinely suspenseful again, and I found myself actually not wanting to stop listening (I'd switched to the audiobook by then, masterfully read by Santino Fontana). The foundation and long history of the Institute became much more interesting to me as the bigger picture emerged. Again, this book has Stranger Things written all over its core IMO. Kids with abilities, sinister adults conducting secret experiments, a creepy facility, friendship and kids banding together against something much bigger than themselves.... obviously it's its own story, but the similarities are hard to ignore. If you like that combination of sci-fi, horror and - despite the horrors, hopeful - adventure, then there's a lot to enjoy here. The writing style is very straightforward and simplistic at times, but as a litfic reader who mostly avoids genre literature I kind of expected that feeling. The pacing issues definitely kept it from 4 stars, but the fast, adventurous ending and main revelation about the Institute's history and purpose absolutely pulled me back in. A solid 3.5.