Review: The Institute by Stephen King

Smart kids, superpowers, and government conspiracies; what more could you want?

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The Institute is a science fiction thriller novel jam-packed with action and kid-power.

I’ll be honest, when my friend picked this novel for our book club I was a bit skeptical at first. Neither of us had read any Stephen King before, and when it comes to approaching a famous author’s writing, I prefer to start with their most popular work. With King, there’s so much to choose from. Why not The Shining? Why not It?

But let me tell you, The Institute did not disappoint.

Here’s a short plot summary: One perfectly normal night, twelve-year-old Luke Ellis is kidnapped from his family home in Minneapolis and shipped halfway across the country to Maine. He learns from his fellow kidnapees that he is in the Institute: a top-secret government facility conducting experiments on children with special talents. For what purpose was Luke kidnapped? And, more importantly, how will he escape?

My Rating: 4/5 Candy Cigarettes 🚬

After a good six months of reading mostly 19th-century gothic novels, King’s writing was a welcome change of pace. His prose is sharp, concise, and easy to digest. The plot was super fun, and…