SHORT BOOK REVIEW

   

STEPHEN KING

THE INSTITUTE.

I'm happy to confess that I am one of Mr.King's 'constant readers'.  His books have played a huge part in my life for about as long as I can remember.  For me, the man is a genius and one of only a few authors whose new books I will buy in Hardback as soon as they are released.

But.  And it's a big but..recently he seems to have lost something?   Maybe it's age or a reaction to the awful accident he had a few years ago or something else but his last few have left me with a distinct disappointment.

This one I'm sorry to say is another one of those. 

No spoilers as per usual but the plot involves a secret organisation who are kidnapping kids with latent physic abilities.  They are being taken to 'The Institute' where these abilities are being enhanced and are then used to carry out various nefarious tasks including murder.  Needless to say The Institute isn't the most pleasant place to reside and the kids are routinely tortured and discarded once their usefulness is over.  One group of kids decide to rebel.

You may think it's all very Firestarter   and you'd be absolutely correct.  It is VERY Firestarter.  

He always writes children well and does here to but there is just something missing.  I'm usually gripped by a new SK from paragraph one on page one but here I wasn't.  I found myself not really caring about any of the main characters and some of the others like The Institutes 'ferocious' head was about as threatening as a bowl of vegetable soup.

It all ends very much as expected.

I didn't enjoy it.  It was a chore to read.  I've felt a similar way to his last few I'm extremely sad to say.  He just seems to have ran out of ideas?

Still be a 'constant reader' and will still read everything the man ever writes but I can't really recommend this one at all.  Go back and re read 'The Stand'.  You'll be glad you did.