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| Manufacturer | - |
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| Brand | Stephen King |
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| Product Id | 299298 |
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| User Reviews and Ratings | 4.9 (72 ratings) 4.9 out of 5 stars |
| UPC | 405762712862 |
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The Institute : A Novel (Hardcover)
Reviews: 72
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(72)
Price:
$15.83
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72 | (4.9) |
$15.83
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Christmas gift, son likes the author
Very good book. Excellent price and shipping speed!
This book took me back to some of King's early writing. I felt as connected to this as I used to back in the early days to books such as The Stand. In fact, to my mind, that's what makes this book so scary. Back when I read The Stand, I highly felt that this whole scenario was a possibility. I feel the same way about this book. The way it happens. The children kidnapped, their parents murdered. The book cover will tell you that much, and you will think that is the worst that can happen. Wow. This is a great read and one that you will not want to quit. Carve out a fair chunk of time to read this. You will not want interruptions and you will not want to put it down. And please read it carefully, as it was written to be read. You will love it if you are a fan......or if you're not.
I thought for a long, long time before even rating this book. I am a die-hard Stephen King fan...read every word that he's ever written and he has written many...nearly 600 pages in this one alone. I liked it but I liked his scarier offerings more. I will have to say that it's not Stephen King at his best but it's far, far from the worst either. It is a book that I believe readers will really like or really not like. You might say that it's a "character study" between the people that think everything they do is for the good of others and those that will try to stop them. King has never had any difficulty going overboard off the beaten path into the realm of the unlikely... but for this one,you must just leave your disbelief at the door. I'm a big fan of King and a "not at all fan" of one of the guys he makes digs at...so I'll give him the 4.5 rating.
This felt/read like earlier Stephen King and I enjoyed the absence of excessive profanity. The only reason I didn't give five stars is because there were things that I wanted explained that didn't get explained. I felt like when the lisping man meets up with Tim, there was ample room for lengthier conversations such as more details about the other institutes and whether there was anyone left alive. I feel like there should have been.
This was spectacular! I hate to admit it but I avoided Stephen King's books until about 5 years ago or so. When I was a teenager almost 30 years ago, I read a short story written by King and didn't enjoy it. I didn't pick up another book with his name on it for another 25 years. It turns out this was a very big mistake. Huge. I could have been enjoying his books all these years and didn't give them a chance because for some reason I thought that my teenage mind was able to make a good decision. I have matured a lot as a reader and a human being and have enjoyed his books that I have picked up during the past several years but I have a lot of catching up to do. I found myself like the characters in this book right away. We first meet Tim who becomes a night knocker in a small southern town. I liked Tim a lot but I really felt like Luke was the driving force of this story. Luke is a twelve-year-old boy who happens to be a well-adjusted genius. Luke's life falls apart when he is taken to the Institute. He is able to make friends and keep himself safe in this unkind environment. Luke never stops thinking and always seems to be two steps ahead of everyone else. I couldn't help but want to see good things happen for this awesome kid and his friends. I loved the way this book came together. I felt like there were a lot of finely moving parts that worked perfectly to tell a larger story. Every piece of information may become important at a later time. The descriptions were so vivid that I almost felt like I was there with Luke through all of his experiences. I found this plot to be incredibly original. The story was really exciting at times with some pretty intense action. I found parts of the book to also be emotional. Luke goes through a whole lot in this book and I really felt for him at times. I would highly recommend this book to others. I had a fantastic time with this book and hated to put it down. It really was a joy to read and I cannot wait to read more of King's work.
As a long-time fan of Stephen King's works I suffered a few disappointments in the past handful of years, at times wondering if he had lost some of the… special powers that made his books so compelling in the past. Something of the old vigor seemed to have returned with the previously published book, The Outsider, although that too fell a little short of the mark, at least for me, but reading his latest creation, The Institute, I realized I was witnessing the long awaited… Return of the King :-) The main reason, from my point of view, is that once again Stephen King chose not to delve into supernatural horror, although he does that quite well, but to explore the kind that comes from the darkest corners of the human soul: what we, as humans, are capable of once compassion and empathy are removed, is indeed much more terrifying than any fictional vampire or clown-shaped evil entity. The Institute starts with one of those themes King does so well, a small town background in which former cop Tim Jamieson lands after leaving his old job and starting an aimless peregrination through the country: the city of DuPray is one of those creations we often encountered – with different names – in many of Stephen King's stories, a small community where everyone knows everyone else and the interpersonal dynamics are built on equally well-known figures like an older, world-wise sheriff; a shifty motel manager; a possibly crazy old lady who hides unexpected depths; and so on. Despite this stagnant, somnolent tableau, one can feel the mounting dread, almost like the sound of approaching thunder, and it would be easy to imagine that whatever is going to happen, will happen here, shattering DuPray's day-by-day sameness. Instead we are surprised by an abrupt change of perspective (at least for a good portion of the book) as the focus moves toward twelve-year old Luke Ellis, a boy gifted with extraordinary intelligence and such a balanced disposition that he's not isolated as many geniuses are, but rather knows how to successfully integrate his cleverness with any kind of social situation. But Luke is special in another way: he possesses some telekinetic powers – not much, just enough to move a pizza pan or to ruffle a book's pages, but evidently enough to catch the attention of a shady governmental agency. One night a team infiltrates Luke's house, kills both his parents and kidnaps him. When Luke wakes up from his drugged sleep he finds himself in a room that mirrors his own, apart from the missing window and the fact that the door opens on a corridor with many other similar doors and a few motivational posters depicting happy children at play. The Institute, located in a remote area of Maine, has been in operation since the mid-fifties, acquiring gifted children in the same, merciless way as Luke was: the prisoners' talents in telepathy or telekinesis are enhanced through injections with often unpredictable after-effects or sheer torture – like the near-drowning in the dreaded tank – and the new arrivals placed in the first section of the compound, called Front Half, are then moved to the Back Half, from which they never return. Children are told they are serving their country and that once their stint at the Institute is over they will be returned to their families after a mind-wipe that will erase all memories of their experience – and if we readers know what bare-faced lie this is, many of the kids have already learned not to trust these adults who treat them so callously and to doubt anything they are told, despite their desperate need to believe it. This novel offers a story in which tension builds with each new chapter, leading with page-turning intensity toward a massive showdown, and as such it's a very satisfying read that to me brought back the excitement I used to find in older King works, but where it truly excels is in the exploration of the human soul in both its brightest and darkest sides. The former comes from the children, who are forced to grow up very quickly in the face of the situation they find themselves in, creating bonds with each other that go beyond any consideration of gender, race or temperament: they are all victims here, aware that a ruthless machine they have no control over is using them, chewing them up and then discarding whatever remains. Deprived of their freedom and their dignity (at some point one of their captors uses the word property) they try to cling to whatever form of defiance is allowed them, while dealing with the incredible, often terrifying powers that have been wakened in them. I admired the way Stephen King never resorts to easy sentimentalism when portraying these kids, even when they are faced with heart-wrenching circumstances or unbearable losses, which lends an incredibly powerful intensity to a key moment when one of those children chooses sacrifice for the good of others, the last thought in that young mind being “I loved having friends”. I am not ashamed to say that the sentence made me cry, such was my connection with these wonderful characters. On the other side of the equation, the adults managing the Institute are a case in point for what happens to one's conscience when the perception of a supposedly worthy goal makes them stop caring for collateral damage: the abducted children are seen as a means to an end – preventing the annihilation of the human race – and as such they must be driven to serve, whether they want it or not. If the people in the top echelon of the Institute are imbued with such blind zealotry and deal with the children with dispassionate practicality, the lower ranks are another matter: many of them actually enjoy hurting their young charges when they don't obey orders or refuse to submit to painful and dangerous procedures. Even though it's never expressed openly, the parallel with concentration camps guards is there for everyone to see, the dehumanizing of the victims and the unwillingness to see them as people – there is a painfully lucid reflection from Luke Ellis that paints this divide in no uncertain terms: Luke realized he wasn't a child at all to her. She had made some crucial separation in her mind. He was a test subject. You made it do what you wanted, and if it didn't, you administered what the psychologists called negative reinforcement. And when the tests were over? You went down to the break room for coffee and danish and talked about your own kids (who were real kids) or bitched about politics, sports, whatever. Once again, King paints children as both victims and heroes, and this time they don't battle with supernatural evil but with an earthly kind of wickedness that's even more terrifying because it's a part of the human mindset, one that might lie dormant but can be all too easily reawakened given the right input. The Institute is at times a hard book to read, but it's one that compels you to think, and to think hard about what makes us human and what can rob us of that oh-so-thin veneer of compassion toward our own kind. And it's also a story that made me delight in the return of the narrative strength I so enjoyed in the past from this author.
Luke Ellis is a special twelve-year-old boy in that he is really smart and has now outgrown the school his parents have sent him to. Now he's ready for college. M.I.T. and Emerson are his choices. But his family lives in Minneapolis. The school's trust has found a way to relocate to Massacuttes and find them jobs. Luke could also do something else. He was able to rattle the plates in the house when he got upset or move the pizza pan off the table when he got excited. One night after he'd taken the SATs a group of people broke into his house and killed his parents and took him to The Institute in the Maine woods. When he wakes up it's to a room that looks exactly like his room at home. He walks out to the hallway and meets an African American girl named Kalisha who tells him he can call her Sha if he wants but to never call her sport because that's what they call her. She's TP pos or Telepathic positive. He tells her he's a TK or a Telekinetic but he doesn't know if he's a pos or not. She says can you do anything without trying? He says no, he does it by accident. And she says he's pink. The pink's they try to bring out the opposite ability. They do this by giving you shots to hopefully get you to see dots. The shots have different reactions to you. They can itch, give you a fever, or choke you. They also stick a rectal thermometer up their buts which is quite painful. They also dunk them in the tank to bring about the Statsi Lights that would indicate a second ability. The cafeteria has wonderful food and there are machines where you can use the tokens you earn for being good to buy candy, but also cigarettes and booze, but only enough booze to get buzzed. There's a playground with lots of equipment to play on such a trampoline and a basketball court. There are also games to play such as chess. Some of the other kids are Nick, a TK pos who refuses to cooperate and fights them every step of the way and winds up with black eyes and split lips. George, a TK pos, believes in getting along to survive. Iris who is a bit high strung but sweet. Avery, little kid who is very strong TP comes in and Kalisha wants Luke to look after him. Helen comes in next. She's a punk rock girl with dyed hair and an attitude to match. They make up the Front Half of the Institute. But there's a Back Half and then there's a Back Half to the Back Half. Eventually, you leave the Front Half and go to the Back Half where you watch movies that give you headaches. The movies are about certain people and their lives. Once you've worn yourself out in the Back Half you go to the Back Half Back Half never to be seen again. When Kalisha gets sent to the Back Half and sends the information about it to Avery to tell Luke she also tells him to plan an escape. Luke is the smartest one of them there and if anyone can do it it's him. So Luke makes plans to escape. Will he make it? And what will happen to the others? Mrs. Sigby and Stackhouse who run the place have their own agenda. The government really did experiments on people with TP and TK in the 1950s and 1960s. They gave them LSD to help them with their "powers". I think King got his idea for his book on those experiments. This being a Stephen King book, not everyone gets out alive, which will break your heart because you get attached to the characters. Avery is an adorable kid you want to protect and Luke is someone you see as being wasted in there. King has created a world that could very well exist. It's a scary world filled with all sorts of possibilities. This was an amazing book filled with plenty of thrills and chills and heartbreak. If I could give it more than five stars I would, since I can't I give it five out of five stars. Quotes Between midnight and four, everyone should have permission to speak freely. -Stephen King (The Institute p 31) It came to him that life was basically one lone SAT test and instead of four or five choices, you got dozens. Including shit like some of the time and maybe so, maybe not. -Stephen King (The Institute p 56) Karl Marx had called religion the opiate of the people, but Stackhouse begged to differ. He thought Lucky Strikes and Boone's Farm (greatly favored by their female guests) did the job quite nicely. -Stephen King (The Institute p 238) It came to him, with the force of a revelation, that you had to have been imprisoned to fully understand what freedom was. -Stephen King (The Institute p 267)
This book had me hooked from the first chapter. The first chapter introduces us to Tim Jamieson, and I was really into his story. Which only lasted for one chapter. Then on to Luke, the young boy who gets kidnapped by The Institute. I was a little bummed to say goodbye to Tim so soon, but I figured he would come back later in the book, and he did. The horror in this book is of the "man's inhumanity to man" variety. And there are some pretty messed up things in this book. Also a paranormal vibe with kids exhibiting mental powers. I loved this book.
I'm completely done with The book yet but I will say that so far is really good. As with any book, you have to get through the back story at the beginning so it takes a minute to get into but once you do you'll want to keep reading it!