The Institute
Ratings401
Average rating4
“It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was.”
I wanted to love The Institute... for parts of the novel I really did, but the overall feeling when I finished the last page was “Meh”.
The characters build interesting relationships but you never see enough of them together to get truly invested, King has a real talent for throwing kids together and making you love them and there dynamic, The Institute didn't have that (in my opinion).
Also, the ending felt too easy. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Institutes around the world have been running for 50+ years yet Luke and his friends are the first ones to group together and combine their powers? In 50+ years no one else had that idea? I get Luke being super smart but that's not a super-smart call, its basic power in numbers.
Is The Institue worth a read? Hell yea, is it a good book? You bet it is. Is it one of King's best? Nope, not for me.
“Watch out for men in black cars.”
Stephen King is a good writer so you don't care that he has never interacted with a child or a computer
I liked the characters, the children's friendship, the plot and the concept of this book. This is almost perfect for me but the reason why I'm only giving this 3.5 stars is because I felt like the second half of the book dragged on a little bit and there are less TK and TP moments than what I expected. I also didn't know what the purpose of the lisping man in the story. I get that he's the boss or something but it failed to convince me and it seems like he's just there to make fun of his lisp. Despite that, I still enjoyed reading this.
Not at his finest SK has delivered an enjoyable enough book, but I was hoping for more...
The boom has a strong beginning, a mid book slump, a good uptake and a tentative ending. SK puts together a lot of already seen ingredients into a story that is original enough, but the narration is discontinuous and I found the evolution of the story not satisfying. I feel like the author has closed himself in a corner more than once and so the story ended up creatively a little flat.
Anyway, I still enjoyed it and a lot of it is fun, and I feel that with a couple more rewrite it could have been better...
I'm disappointed. I found ‘The Institute' underwhelming. I never felt any sense of tension and the writing itself is meh.
I'm not one of those people who grabs a new King the second it comes out. In fact, I think I've missed quite a few of them. There was something about this one though that caught my attention. First, I forget (I read a lot of literary fiction) what it's like to be in the hands of a truly talented storyteller. Just because someone can smith some words does not mean they can control the story and the plot. Here, the pages- they turn themselves. I was so absorbed in this story. Truly excellent experience. I wish I had read this and Josh Malerman's [b:Inspection 41058632 Inspection Josh Malerman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1534202983l/41058632.SY75.jpg 64119390] closer together. It would have made a great compare and contrast review. My only problem with it, and the problem is all mine, is that I couldn't get passed the idea of so many adults being okay with hurting children (I'm trying to stay spoiler-free here, but the reader must know that the children are being held against their will from jacket copy). I had a hard time buying into that. Second, I was thrown out of the story a couple of times by Tim's thoughts that Wendy was a bad cop (not bad as in on the wrong side; rather, bad as in not cut out for the job). It is mentioned multiple times, so much so that I started to get offended for her.
Fine little book, even if it reminds me of an update of Firestarter (though it's much better than that book).
It's maybe not for people who can't handle kids in peril, but there isn't any horror or gross-out scenes, so most people should be able to enjoy it.
Like many of King's newer books, this one's just plain okay. No interesting characters, no exciting story ...
I listened to the audio book, which was alright. But I probably wouldn't have finished it if I had read it myself.
This is a return to form from King. There are several standard King themes - children with wisdom and special powers serving the central plot and evil corporations/government agencies. But its not the appearance of familiar King themes that make it a return to form. It's an energy to the writing, and a leanness to the plot, that make it a fun book to read. It's above average King. It's not in the top tier, but it's much better than Sleeping Beauties or than the Bill Hodges trilogy.
Más que un libro Toda una película, excelente.A lo que nos tiene acostumbrados el maestro
Dit boek heeft me niet echt kunnen bekoren. Het is wat langdradig en had lang nodig om tot een conclusie te komen. Ik had dit dus ook met het vorige boek van King. Dat hij een verhaal kan schrijven geloof ik verder wel. Ik denk dat ik King een tijdje laat liggen. Jammer.
I thought this was the best King I'd read in a long while, but then I think what are the other recent ones, and Mr. Mercedes was pretty darn good (it's 2 sequels were good but not great), and 11/22/63 was excellent as well. So just another really good Stephen King book then.
not the best plot ever but King still is the very best storyteller as always. The real pages turner.
I don't even know where to start, it was such a good read! The dialog between the children felt a little awkward at first, but the book moves on quickly and it's tough to put down once the story gets rolling.
If you like Stephen King you'll like this book. If you've never read Stephen King you could start here and be happy.