Audio CD, 16 CDs
Narrated by: Santino Fontana
Release Date: September 10, 2019Published by: Scribner
Read from: October 7-25, 2019Stand-aloneSource: LibraryTW: VioenceFor fans of: Fantasy, Thriller, Science Fiction, Adult
In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents—telekinesis and telepathy—who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.
As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King’s gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don’t always win.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I wasn’t sure about this one because it didn’t seem like my thing, but because it’s Stephen King, I had to give it a try. Although I was hoping for more scary, this one was creepy as well, but it was no where near what I was expecting.
As Luke is sleeping, he’s woken up and kidnapped. He’s then taken to The Institute where there are other kids and they are split into weird places called Front Half and Back Half. As he stays, he begins to realize what they’re doing there…. And it terrifies him. As all his friends are taken away, he realizes he needs to get help. But how when he knows no one has ever escaped from the Institute before?
As weird as this was, I did actually like this. The plot was slow, but I think that was because of Stephen King and how he always gets so long winded. But, as you know, you can’t skip anything because of the way he is. He may give you these extra details, but about 85% of the time they might be useful in the end.
As for the characters, I didn’t like anyone besides Annie and Tim. Not even the main character was good. But then again, I think this was the purpose of certain things. The line between good and evil has never seemed as gray as it does in this book. The characters show how difficult it is to try to make the right choice as well.
This wasn’t something that I thought I should write home about, but it was still an entertaining story. It still had me yelling at my car CD player when certain things happened and I still sat in my car when I got where I was going to make sure I could hear the end of that chapter. It was a good book, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.
Overall, I give this
