In King’s new book The Institute we get to follow Luke Ellis, a young boy who has been abducted from his home and is now waking up in a place called the Institute. There are other kids there as well. Most are at or around his age, but some are younger, and some are a bit older. They all have one thing in common. They all have special abilities, telekinetic and telepathic abilities to be more exact. They can all do things that no one else can do and that is why they are here. The Institute (which resembles The Shop that King has written about before) wants to help them get stronger, help them to increase their abilities. And they want to help them do that because they have a purpose for the kids. A purpose that might not be in the kids’ own best interest…

I like The Institute. It’s a good story and as usual we get great characters, both which are strengths from King that I have gotten used to and expect from him by now, but I still don’t want to take them for granted. So, I’m very pleased to report that King delivers! As he has done in many earlier books King taps in perfectly to the kids in the story and manages to tell their story in a believable way. The group of kids remind me somewhat of the Losers Club from IT. They are all victims and they are all in, what seems to be, an impossible situation.

But then we also learn more about the people working at the Institute and even though some of them are sadistic monsters that enjoy hurting kids we get to know them and even though we don’t like them or agree with what they do we understand them. We see what makes them tick and why they do what they do. We see their side and why they feel it’s necessary to do what they do. And I must say it’s not always easy to reject their reasons…

The Institute is one of those King stories that I predict I’ll be reading several times down the line. Not that it’s unusual to re-read King’s books but some of them you read just a bit more than the others and I think this is one that I will read just a bit more than the others. And that makes me very happy.