Author: Stephen King
Narrator: Santino Fontana
Playback: 18 hrs 59m
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Genre: Sci-Fi, Thriller
First Published: September 101, 2019
Book Description: In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’ parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there’s no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents — telekinesis and telepathy — who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and 10-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, “like the roach motel,” Kalisha says. “You check in, but you don’t check out.”
In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don’t, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from The Institute.
Review:
We follow two main characters and POV.
When I first started reading the book, I was a bit confused because it seemed like I was reading Tim Jaimeson's story. He used to be an officer in Sarasota but left his job and ended up hitchhiking. Eventually, he found himself in DuPray where he applied for the "Night Knocker" job. I have to admit that his story really hooked me from the beginning. Even though I thought I was reading a different plot, it was still okay because I was so engrossed in Tim's story.
But then in the next chapter, there was a sudden shift in the storyline. We were introduced to Luke. He is a child prodigy, destined for greatness when one night he is kidnapped and taken to The Institute, a place where children with special abilities are held captive and subjected to bizarre experiments.. One night, he woke up to find himself in a copied version of his own room, albeit without any windows. It was at this point that the story of the wonder kids at the INSTITUTE began to unfold.
In this dark, evil place, all they have is each other, as they try to avoid cruel punishments. The ugly unfairness of it makes the story immediately compelling and, as bigger secrets come to light, I couldn't imagine how they were ever going to get out of it. It's a truly gripping tale of survival and the lengths people will go to in order to protect themselves and those they care about. Despite the odds stacked against them, there's a glimmer of hope that keeps them going, and it's impossible not to root for them as they navigate the treacherous landscape around them.
There are two types of kids - those who are telepaths and those who are telekinetic. To identify them, they go through various tests and experiments. One of the tests involves seeing dots.
The kids in the institute are placed in very harsh situations: they are lied to, prodded, and manipulated. One of the things that disturbed me was the fact that they are encouraged to immerse themselves to consume narcotics, tobacco, or drugs. It's disturbing the abuse the people in charge of the institute show the children under their "care". The people here continue to insist that they will be placed through tests and after they cooperate, they will be returned to their families with no memories of that period. It's very unbelievable, but they are scared children, so I guess it's expected them to believe not due to logic but wishful thinking.
It wasn't exactly a fast read, but it was still intriguing. I never got bored while reading it. It was quite a page-turner - riveting, nerve-bending, and full of surprises. However, there were too many references to the author's older books, and the writing style was a little different from what I'm used to from this author. What really got to me were the things the little kids fought against - it made me feel sad and frustrated.
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