Deep in the woods of Maine, there is a dark state facility where kids, abducted from across the United States, are incarcerated. In the Institute they are subjected to a series of tests and procedures meant to combine their exceptional gifts – telepathy, telekinesis – for concentrated effect.
I have been trying to read every Stephen King book in order, but whenever he releases a new entry into his catalogue, that jumps straight to the front of the queue. I ordered The Institute as soon as it was announced and it has been a really long wait for it to arrive, especially since the last book, Elevation was somewhat shorter than expected.
As always, I try to keep away from spoiler territory in my reviews by trying to keep most of the plot out (I am the kind of person who is often years behind catching up with something and hate having things ruined, even that long after the event).
You never quite know what you are going to get with Stephen King, aside from it’s going to start off rather slowly, then once it hits a certain point, it’s all out action from then-on right to the end.
Once again this book started off very very slowly, there was a bit of a joint-reading of this book in my office and we all wondered why there was so much time spent talking about Night-knockers and some random town which did not seem to link to the synopsis of the story, but we needn’t have worried as everything came together and this opening part really helped out as everything was going down towards the end of the book.
I recently read The Firestarter and I can certainly see why people have compared the two stories, as in simple terms, they both contain kids who have some form of telepathic abilities, but that’s where the similarities ended for me as there is so much more depth in this story than in Firestarter (I guess that comes with 40+ years of writing experience though).
Once again, Stephen has created a cast of characters you really start to feel for, especially as the horrors they are subjected to become more and more extreme. There was even one character in the book who made me swear out loud when they gave up some valuable information to the captors.
As quite an experienced reader of Stephen King’s work, I am fully aware of how his endings are not the best things ever written (a criticism he is more than happy to own, so much so, it was even featured as a joke in the latest IT Chapter 2 film) and once again, I was left a little disappointed with the final 50 or so pages.
Thinking back on it though, I understand it ended in pretty much the only way it could, however it seemed quite rushed in some ways, like Stephen had gotten carried away with the story then realised it had passed the 500 page mark and had to be reeled back in again.
Two things really stood out about this book, for everyone I have spoken to about it, firstly The term Night-Knocker seems to be a very American term and, although you can guess what it means, it’s still worth a quick google. The second thing that stands out is that the term Stephen king uses to describe the flies is Mingies, which once again means a VERY different thing over here in the UK, but did make our reading group laugh each time we saw the term.
Overall, despite the slight feelings of let-down at the end, I still thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it felt good to be back in SK world….like putting on a very familiar and comfortable pair of slippers.
Overall Rating – 4.5 / 5.0
