Combining the suspense of THE OUTSIDER with the childhood camaraderie in IT, THE INSTITUTE is a powerful new novel from Stephen King which is destined to become the No. 1 blockbuster of Autumn 2019.
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.
Luke Ellis is the latest recruit. He's just a regular 12-year-old, except he's not just smart, he's super-smart. And he has another gift which the Institute wants to use...
Far away in a small town in South Carolina, former cop Tim Jamieson has taken a job working for the local sheriff. He's basically just walking the beat. But he's about to take on the biggest case of his career.
Back in the Institute's downtrodden playground and corridors where posters advertise 'just another day in paradise', Luke, his friend Kalisha and the other kids are in no doubt that they are prisoners, not guests. And there is no hope of escape.
But great events can turn on small hinges and Luke is about to team up with a new, even younger recruit, Avery Dixon, whose ability to read minds is off the scale. While the Institute may want to harness their powers for covert ends, the combined intelligence of Luke and Avery is beyond anything that even those who run the experiments - even the infamous Mrs Sigsby - suspect.
Thrilling, suspenseful, heartbreaking, THE INSTITUTE is a stunning novel of childhood betrayed and hope regained.
(P)2019 Simon & Schuster Audio
As is typical of King he takes his time setting up the world, fleshing out his characters and giving us a sense of things before plunging us into the twisted darkness that awaits us there. He makes you think as he unravels a tale that seems both horrific and yet strangely plausible. For me, this felt like old school King and I slipped in letting the outside world float away.
Like most of King’s books I went into this story completely blind with nothing more than the cover to guide me. We meet and travel with, Tim Jamieson, a former police officer with several commendations. He is traveling to New York to begin a new career and through a series of events ends up in Dupray, South Carolina.
We then meet young Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old genius living in the suburbs of Minneapolis. Aside from Luke’s intelligence he appears to move things unintentionally when he is excited or stressed. In the middle of the night an SUV enters his quiet neighborhood and three strangers dressed in black quietly invade his home. He awakens to a noise to see a strange woman in his room then everything goes dark. When he awakens, he is is in his room… only it’s not his room. He is thousands of miles away in rural Maine at a place known as the Institute. And so it begins.
Holy Mindbenders. Secret government compounds, experiments, creepy doctors, front rooms, back rooms, tests, changes and more await you. I will not say more. I don’t think this was scary horror, but it did cause the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end a few times particularly in the back half. We meet a group of kids varying in age from ten to I think sixteen and what they are put through is horrifying.
*whispers* Fans of Stranger Things..think Eleven.
The two threads merge and it’s one heck of a ride. The audio is nineteen hours long and I finished in two days. It left me bleary eyed with a book hangover. All I am saying is this… It was worth it!
Santino Fontana delivered with the narration giving voice to a wide range of characters and age groups. All of them felt authentic and his female voices were spot on. I think he enhanced the villians and strengthened Lucas’s journey. This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Reviewer
Reading updates
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Started reading
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13 September, 2019:
Finished reading
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13 September, 2019:
Reviewed