A review by cosyinyellow
The Institute by Stephen King

dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

It was such a good read. Honestly, kept me on my toes! I was in a bit of a reading slump when I started this book. But, when I got out of my slump, I was on high speed to finish it. I don't often read adult thriller due to me being sensitive to the violence and gore that usually found in this genre. I decided to give this one a go, since I was really intrigued by the synopsis of The Institute. 

It's refreshing to read a book where the characters have superhuman abilities yet doesn't know how to use it, or they are not later trained to become a superhero in the story. If superhuman abilities exist, what happened in this book would be close to the reality. Abusive and forceful experiments carried out on those special human.

As much as I enjoyed reading this book, it wasn't all fun. There were heartbreaking moments. Moments when I wanted to break things around me because of how unfair and nasty the world was for the main characters- the children. The child abuse begun from the moment the children entered the institute. However, as a reader what started to break me was page 124. The children were tough cookies, but what occured here was what made all the children start to crack. I won't say what happened, but what was done to them was degrading. The adults at the institute disgust me. Horrible and heartless.

The first half of the book mostly followed Luke Ellis going through the many inhumane tests at the insitute, and the second half followed him as he tried to escape the insitute. (The second half was AHHHHHHHHH!!!, but worth the wait. Definitely.) I was rooting for him since he was first mentioned.

It has been a while since I really like a character from a book, and this book gave me more than one character to adore. Luke Ellis was a brave boy, and Avery Dixon. All the children were. My favourite are probably Luke and Nick. I loved that Nick kept fighting the staff, even though he lost most of the time, he still kept at it. I wanted them all to escape that horrid place and grow up in the real world.

There were parts in the book where I found the pacing to be rather slow, so I had to give this book a 4.5 instead of 5 stars rating.

Rating:
✿✿✿✿● (4.5 stars)
The Institute is a blend of Stranger Things and X-Men. I'd highly recommend this book for lovers of thriller and paranormal! Although content warning, child abuse (lots of it) and gore.
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