King conveys Luke’s confusion, shock, hopelessness and grief in convincing and heart-wrenching fashion. He soon learns he’s not alone, as other kids, ranging in age from 10 to 16, are also being held prisoner. Once outside his room, Luke finds himself in a strange facility somewhere in Maine. He awakens in a room made to look like his own, though the illusion stops at the door. It’s more than 50 pages later before we meet the novel’s true protagonist, young prodigy Luke Ellis, whose parents are trying to get him into a prestigious school where his unique intellect will be challenged.īut Luke’s world is shattered when he is kidnapped from his Minneapolis home in the middle of the night by a team of highly skilled special operatives.

In an unexpected move, King opens The Institute with a Jack Reacher-like drifter named Tim Jamieson, who takes a job as a “night knocker” with the sheriff’s department in rural Dupray, South Carolina. Stephen King’s The Institute is already drawing comparisons to a couple of his older works, Firestarter and It, as well as to the Netflix sensation “Stranger Things.” And with good reason- The Institute includes a ragtag collection of adolescents banding together against a common enemy, a shady organization exploiting children for their unique “gifts.” But whether King is chasing “Stranger Things” or “Stranger Things” is chasing King, the result is the same: shocking suspense and hallmark thrills.

Stephen king the institute book