Finished: The Institute by Stephen King

Hello, dear readers.


Last night, I stayed up way too late to finish "The Institute" by Stephen King. I love his work. I can never put his books down. He has a way of creating characters you care about, even when the world they are stuck in is terrifying. 


I went into this book knowing the basics: a secret facility where kids with special talents (telekinesis, telepathy) are taken and experimented on. I expected it to be creepy, but I did not expect it to feel so sad and infuriating. 


The kids in the story —Luke, Kalisha, and Avery —all of them —felt real. They were brave, vulnerable, and funny in the exact ways real kids are. That made the horrors of the Institute feel even worse. It is one thing to read about monsters with fangs and claws. It is another when the monsters look like ordinary adults in lab coats, justifying unthinkable things.


There is also something about the idea of children carrying the burden of saving themselves because the grown-ups have failed them. 


It was not a perfect book; some parts dragged, and some twists felt predictable. However, the core of it stayed with me - the reminder that power without empathy is terrifying and that sometimes the smallest voices carry the most significant truths.


Claudia 📚🌙🔮

 

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