The Institute

Published in 2019, The Institute follows Luke Ellis, a twelve-year-old with mild telekinetic ability, who is kidnapped and brought to a secret facility in rural Maine. The Institute houses dozens of children with psychic powers—telepathy and telekinesis—who are subjected to painful tests while their abilities are amplified and exploited for an undisclosed purpose. Luke's focus shifts from escape to understanding what the Institute does with the power it extracts.

The novel is spiritually a companion piece to Firestarter (1980) and shares DNA with The Dead Zone—all three center on the exploitation of psychic children by institutional forces. King has also noted similarities to IT in its focus on a group of children working together against an adult power structure. The Institute stands alone, with no direct universe connections.

Tim Jamieson is a former policeman who arrives in the small South Carolina town of Dupray after a chance encounter redirects his flight. The novel opens with his arrival and spends considerable time establishing his life in Dupray before connecting him to the Institute plot. King uses him as an outsider perspective and a logistical participant in the novel's climax—the structure mirrors how King delays the monster's reveal by first grounding the reader in a separate, ordinary world.

The Institute is not a young adult novel despite its child protagonists. The abuse the children suffer is depicted with clinical brutality, and the novel includes violence against children that King does not soften. It is adult horror fiction that happens to follow children—similar to IT in that respect. Parents should treat the audience rating as adult.