The Institute is a bit of a mixed bag. There was a lot that I liked in this novel, but there were some really serious negatives as well. In this stories, children who display telekinetic or telepathic abilities are kidnapped from their homes and transported to a remote location in Maine where they are first tested and given various stimulus and are later transferred to the “Back Half” portion of the facility, where the children collectively are being used to assassinate people.
I’ll start with the parts of this novel that I liked. The writing, of course, is very good. That’s always a given with Stephen King, as he is a master of his craft and I would expect no less of him. The characterization is also very good. Stephen King is not only a master at writing but his children characters are always so well developed and this novel is no exception. The characters are really strong.
Now to the bad. The logic behind this story is abysmal. Spoilers ahead so beware. So, I’m supposed to believe that an organization that is mostly staffed by ex-military and former law enforcement officials are willing to kill parents and kidnap children where they are used up and eventually die as well. And that they are willing to do this on some vague notion with absolutely no supporting evidence that what they are doing is saving the world. I’m also supposed to believe that this has been going on for roughly six decades and hundreds if not thousands of these children have been kidnapped and their parents murdered, and in all of those cases there was never a single competent detective or police force that couldn’t connect the dots that this was happening repeatedly all over the country and then trace it back to this institute. There are other preposterous leaps in logic and every time the author tried to explain this ridiculousness, he made it worse because it made no sense. Other than that, the novel drags a bit in the middle.
In the end, this was an entertaining novel with some significant holes. If I could give it three and a half stars, that’s how I would rate it. It’s worth reading.
