I just finished reading The Institute, Stephen King’s latest novel. Awesome book! The book starts in a simple little town where a ex-cop passing through takes a job as a night knocker. There’s a kid, a really smart kid, whose 12 years old and already getting ready to attend MIT because he’s gifted. That’s the setting. From there it gets chilling. Even without King’s usual ghosts, monsters or boogeymen. The “monsters” in this one are people.

The kid, Luke, is kidnapped in the middle of the night. His parent are murdered in the process. He wakes up at The Institute in Maine in a room that’s just like his, except no windows. There’s other kids there and he learns from a young girl in the hallway, seemingly smoking a cigarette. Turns out it’s a candy cigarette. Remember those from when we were kids? She tells him that they “do stuff” to the kids, injections-flickering lights-dunking, but at least they’re in the Front Half. You don’t want to go to the Back Half. No, that’s like the roach motel. Kids go in and don’t ever come out.

This story is about the all people throughout history who have told themselves that the horrible, hideous and atrocious things they do are for a “greater good”. This book is intense. Mainly because everything seems so believable and real. You start to wonder if there’s something similar really going on throughout the world and it’s being kept a secret. Could that even be possible with how everything seems to end up on the Internet these days? It was a very good story, good writing, and very relevant with everything that’s going on in the world today.