The Institute – Book Review

Author: Stephen King

Genre: Horror, thriller, mystery

My rating: ★★★★☆

Release Date: Published 10th September, 2019 by Hodder & Stoughton
Format: Hard back, 485 pages

What did I think?

This was my aha moment regarding Stephen King. I hadn’t placed him in the writers I didn’t like category—not at all—but I had only read ‘On writing’ (which was non-fiction) and ‘The Dead Zone’, and that was fair. ‘The Institute’ really is an excellent tale.

It’s long novel, yet I didn’t complain all the way through. Amazing 😛 It’s well crafted from characters to plot. King wove two story threads together SO well. Wow. There were many people in this book I liked and got behind, including the child protagonist, Luke.

Luke is a genius about to start two colleges concurrently when he was snatched away to The Institute. Things are rough there. Frightening, though not in a bloody way. You can find out exactly what’s happening at The Institute by reading the novel, but I will place a few spoilers below, for those who have read this already.

Spoiler time:

(Sorry, I’ve removed them. But you can choose to read the spoilers in my review published on Goodreads)

I’ve come out of ‘The Institute’ not as a die-hard King fan (yet) but certainly in awe of the fact that’s he’s a terrific storyteller who writes solid novels, and as a person who will read more from him. No doubt. I mean, see how it was nearly 500 pages long, and I only mentioned it once? (Well, sure, it’s twice now!) There’s something down to earth about his writing. It’s darn good. And I thoroughly enjoyed his references to US politics – Clinton, and you know…the one they have now.

PS A note for Mr King. Could we have a novel where Sheriff John is one of the central characters, please? Uh-huh, uh-huh.