I had no idea what I was getting into with this one. I’ve only read a few Stephen King books and I was surprised at how crazy this was. While I do think King gets a little bit wordy, the story doesn’t suffer for it. I quickly became hooked on the story and finished it within a couple days.

It starts off with meeting Tim. He’s an ex-cop who was let go because of a misunderstanding and he arrives in a small town purely by coincidence, then you don’t see him for many, many chapters. I think this choice was weird, but when the story came back around to him, I felt like I didn’t miss him that much. This isn’t because I think Tim is unlikable or unimportant. It’s just that I really enjoy Luke’s side of the story. He’s just a kid; the catch is that he’s super smart. This guy is 12 years old and was accepted to two different prestigious colleges. He has two parents that love him and will do anything for him until the night he gets kidnapped and placed in the Institute. This Institute is a place that has a top secret mission, that I won’t spoil here, but their way of accomplishing it is so barbaric and the actions they take are so unforgivable that I hate them with a passion. I have never felt such disdain for an organization in a fictional setting than I have in this story. I think King‘s writing style here is perfect because he’s able to invoke these emotions about the Institute from the beginning. I immediately felt that Luke was in peril and I wanted to help him. The kid isn’t helpless though and he does some truly heroic stuff for only being 12 years old and I really respect him for it. When the story comes back to Tim and his perspective, it doesn’t miss a beat. The tension is high throughout the entire story and I never knew what was gonna happen next. Introducing two main characters that are not anywhere near each other right out the gate means that they’re gonna meet at some point, but that doesn’t make their meeting any less substantial and impactful. The story unfolds very sequentially and the revelations are well thought out. I think the ending was also well done even if it could’ve been cut a little bit shorter.

Luke isn’t the only kid who gets kidnapped, however, and he meets quite a few other kids within the Institute and makes friends with them. Each had their own abilities and histories and I was getting attached to each of them as they were introduced. Oh yeah, these kids have psychic abilities. Some are telepathic while others are telekinetic. Their powers aren’t naturally dangerous, but the Institute hopes to harness them for their own means. Avery, one of Luke’s most trusted friends, is 10, but he is one of the strongest telepaths in the entire group. Kalisha isn’t as strong as him, but her grounding presence keeps Luke from going off the deep end. While there are other named kids in the Institute, these are the main ones that are explored throughout the story. Other than the kids, the Institute employees also have their own stories. There’s a housekeeper named Maureen who is like a pseudo mother for the kidnapped children, Gladys, the no nonsense caretaker who is an unforgivable, demon, woman, there’s Stackhouse who is the institute headmaster’s right hand and of course there’s the headmaster herself, Mrs. Sigsby. She has been running the Institute for many years and is an old crone that basically has no morality left. She’s an irredeemable villain that we don’t get much insight into and that’s perfectly okay. Sometimes characters are made just to hate and that is her to the letter. There are also the residents of DuPray; John, the sheriff, Wendy the dispatcher, and of course Orphan Annie, the homeless eccentric conspiracy theory-believer. Annie is a character many can sympathize with, and I enjoyed every part of the story that she was in. She brings some much-needed joy to a very dark tale.

The structure of the beginning of the story was a bit off-putting. I don’t think Tim is given enough time to really become a character that the reader can get attached to and cutting away from him for so long made the disconnect even larger. I think it would have flowed better if it bounced back and forth or only brought Tim in during the later half of the book. Regardless, I really enjoyed the story. I wanted to protect Luke, and the other kids, at all costs and the pure hatred I felt for the Institute as an entity was substantial. King’s writing here evoked such malice from me that I can only give him props for it. I was hooked for the entire narrative and would recommend it to any literary thrill seekers.