The Institute

Rating: 3/5 shots for dots

Luke Ellis is an exceptionally smart kid, to the point that he’s only twelve but will soon enroll at MIT and Emerson. Luke is intelligent, but that’s not what catches the eye of the Institute, a seemingly under-the-radar, mysterious place in Maine. They’re interested in Luke’s basic telekinesis (TK) abilities (despite the fact that all Luke can really do is move an empty pizza pan; he’s no Carrie). In fact, the folks at the institute are so interested that they break into Luke’s home, murder his parents, and whisk Luke away.

Luke awakens in a room that looks eerily similar to his bedroom. Luke meets a girl, Kalisha, who explains that The Institute houses kids with telekinetic and telepathic (TP) powers. Luke and Kalisha are currently in Front Half, where the Institute staff conduct weird, painful experiments on them, and refusal to comply with staff requests often results in physical punishment.  Some of the torture areas have posters that say “Shots for Dots,” and the kids often receive shots for some unknown purpose. One staff member, Maureen, a housekeeper, seems nice, but most others seem to enjoy flexing their power over the children. Kalisha has been in Front Half for a while, but she has seen many kids who are no longer there.

At some point, kids move on to Back Half. What happens there remains a mystery. Staff say that after Back Half, the kids’ brains are wiped and they’re returned back home. (But come on…that seems unlikely.) Most of the kids in Front Half fear Back Half, despite not knowing what exactly happens there. Luke wants to escape The Institute before he has to find out exactly what happens at Back Half.

The painful Front Half experiments seem to be used to amplify TK and TP abilities. (Could it also be to see if people with TK can become TP? No, maybe that’s just one rogue doctor, conducting his own little side project.) It quickly becomes clear that the Institute wants to harness kids’ TK and TP abilities, but for what?

When King reveals why the Institute is taking control of kids’ TK and TP abilities, it raises an interesting moral question: Is the “good” the kids are doing worth the pain and abuse to which they’re subjected? Much of the book grapples with this question and makes the reader wonder if this were actually happening, would it be ok? How can good or evil be quantified? Is strict utilitarianism an effective, ethical, and humane way to guide conduct?

The Institute is a good book, and if it were written by anyone else, it may have been 3.5 shots for dots instead of 3, but I hold Stephen King to a higher standard. I’m not sure if that’s fair, but the man wrote The Shining! He wrote IT! He wrote Pet Sematary! I expect a King book to freak me out and/or strike an emotional cord, and The Institute didn’t. That said, it’s incredibly well written, as King’s books are. It’s an interesting story, but it won’t change your life, and it probably won’t be a book you reread.