Category: Reading

Book Review: Lonesome Dove

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By: Larry McMurtry

Finished: 8/18/26

I’m not sure there’s much I can say about Lonesome Dove that hasn’t already been said. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

And for a book that’s 858 pages long, what’s remarkable is how little of it feels wasted. Larry McMurtry fills this thing with so many characters, places, relationships and little adventures that by the end, it feels less like you read a story and more like you spent a long stretch of your life traveling alongside these people.

The characters are what really got me.

Gus McCrae has to be one of my favorite characters I’ve ever encountered in a book. He’s slick, funny, woman-loving, incredibly capable and carries himself with this mystique where you get the sense that nobody is ever really going to get the better of him. Well, except Clara. He can be one mess of a fighter, but he can also be incredibly gentle, especially in his relationship with Lorena. There’s a warmth underneath all the swagger that makes him impossible not to love.

Then there’s Captain Call, who is almost the exact opposite. He barely has a personality on the surface. He’s hard, quiet, honest and completely obsessed with doing what he believes is right. He loves being alone. He understands work and duty much better than he understands people. And yet underneath all of that is this huge contradiction involving Newt, his son, whom he can never quite bring himself to acknowledge. McMurtry never needs to spell out exactly what’s going on inside Call. You just feel it.

That’s true of so many of these characters. Jake Spoon is careless and selfish, making promises to Lorena he probably never seriously intends to keep and continually finding himself mixed up with the wrong people. July Johnson starts out as a sheriff pursuing Jake and seems to be part of an almost completely different story. Other characters disappear for huge stretches of the book. At times you wonder how all these threads could possibly be connected.

And then, slowly, they are.

That might be my favorite thing about the construction of Lonesome Dove. The world feels enormous. People seem impossibly far away from one another, living their own lives and having their own adventures, and then their paths cross in ways that feel completely natural. Nobody exists simply because the plot needs them to.

There’s also just an endless amount of stuff that happens. A cattle drive across the country could easily become repetitive, but McMurtry constantly interrupts the quiet with these little bursts of danger, tragedy, humor and absurdity. There are outlaws and Indians and storms and shootings and a bull that battles a grizzly bear. There are moments of horrible violence followed by long stretches of dusty cowboys riding across an almost empty landscape.

And somehow, all of it is beautiful.

That’s another thing I loved about McMurtry’s writing. He can make the smallest, most uneventful moments feel as important as the big ones. One of my favorite passages in the entire book is just Gus getting up early, making biscuits outside and watching the sun come up. McMurtry writes:

“It was tribute enough to sunrise that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful.”

It’s just a perfect line. A few sentences earlier, he describes the sun rising over the landscape until it “lifted clear, like an immense coin.” There’s no action here. Nothing important to the plot is happening. Gus is making breakfast, enjoying the morning and reading a little from the Bible while his biscuits brown. But these quiet moments are part of what makes the world of Lonesome Dove feel so real. McMurtry lets you live there for a while.

And that beauty is constantly sitting next to brutality. The distances are enormous. Death can come from an animal, a river, another person or simple bad luck. The treatment of women is often awful, and prostitution seems to be one of the few options available to many of them. Violence is always nearby. There’s a sense throughout the book that civilization barely exists and that the people traveling through this country are largely responsible for keeping themselves alive.

But I don’t think Lonesome Dove is really about cowboys or the Wild West.

It’s about people.

It’s about friendship and loneliness and regret. It’s about the strange bonds people form when they go through something difficult together. It’s about men who can survive almost anything physically while being completely incapable of saying what they actually feel. And there’s this sadness hanging over so much of the book, even during its funniest and most adventurous moments.

That sadness becomes especially powerful because, after absorbing the minute details, these people feel real. When something happens to one of them, you don’t just register it as another plot development. You feel like you lost somebody you knew.

That was certainly true for me with Gus.

By the end, I didn’t want to leave these characters. That’s probably the highest compliment I can give a book this long. Instead of being relieved to finally finish, I was sad there weren’t more.

One of the best-written books I’ve ever read, cover to cover, and one of the easiest ratings I’ve given. It doesn’t hurt that while nearing the end, I spent time riding horses with my wife through a Washington forest—truly bringing this to life.

Rating: 10/10

Book Review: What Moves the Dead

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By: T. Kingfisher

Finished 5/29/26

Thrilling, haunting, and genuinely unsettling. This one had me so hooked that I had to physically stop myself from peeking at the last line of each chapter. I just had to know what was going to happen next!

As a reimagining of one of my favorite Edgar Allan Poe stories, The Fall of the House of Usher, Kingfisher takes the bones of the original and expands them in all the right ways. Poe’s story leaves a lot unsaid. This one fills in those gaps while keeping the same sense of dread and decay that made the original so memorable.

The story is told through the eyes of Alex Easton, a retired soldier with a wonderfully dry sense of humor that helps balance out the creeping horror. After receiving word that childhood friend Madeline Usher is gravely ill, Easton travels to the Usher estate and quickly realizes something is deeply wrong. The manor itself feels sick. The surrounding countryside feels sick. Even the lake seems wrong.

What really worked for me was the atmosphere. Kingfisher creates image after image that sticks with you long after you’ve put the book down. The fungal horror elements are especially effective, from the strange hares roaming the grounds to the grotesque discoveries made when one is dissected. Every new detail adds another layer of unease.

One of the most memorable scenes involves Easton spotting a pale figure moving through the house at night:

A white shape… ghost-pale in the dark… moving purposefully toward the stairwell.

The reveal that it’s Madeline is somehow even more disturbing. Her frail appearance and unnatural movements turn a simple walk down the stairs into one of the creepiest moments in the book.

Another scene that I loved involves the mysterious lake outside the manor. Easton steps onto a balcony and notices what appear to be stars reflected in the water.

I looked up… There were no stars.

It’s such a simple reveal, but it stopped me cold. The image of a lake glowing with hundreds of green lights beneath a cloud-covered sky perfectly captures the strange dreamlike horror that runs throughout the novel.

The book moves quickly, but never feels rushed. Every chapter pulled me forward, and the mystery unfolds at exactly the right pace. Add in Easton’s voice, the wonderfully creepy setting, and some genuinely unforgettable imagery, and this became one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve picked up in a long time (and officially breaking my streak of back-to-back-to-back Stephen King novels).

This was my first T. Kingfisher novel, but it definitely won’t be my last.

Rating: 10/10

Book Review: The Dead Zone

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By Stephen King

Finished 5/22/26

Stephen King’s The Dead Zone feels like one of those books where the concept does a lot of the heavy lifting early on. A man lives with the ability to touch people or objects and suddenly see fragments of the past or future. That’s classic King territory: supernatural, tragic, weirdly human, and rooted in everyday life. And for me, the beginning and ending of this book really worked.

What I liked most about The Dead Zone wasn’t necessarily the “psychic powers” themselves, but the emotional fallout around them. Johnny Smith is one of King’s more grounded protagonists, being very careful about how/when he uses his powers, even though they carry a heavy mental and physical toll. There’s a sadness hanging over him from the beginning, even before a terrible accident and the following coma changes everything in his life. The car crash sequence itself hits hard because of how ordinary and avoidable it feels. King is so good at making catastrophe feel random and deeply personal at the same time.

The relationship between Johnny and Sarah ended up being one of the strongest parts of the book for me, especially their couple origin story. There’s something bittersweet and haunting about how it all fell apart. Their lives drift apart not because of betrayal or lack of love, but because time itself sort of swallows them whole. I actually wish King had kept them together longer as I think the story still could have explored all of its larger themes while letting that relationship breathe more. Their chemistry gave the book a warmth that I missed later on.

The political rise of Greg Stillson is definitely a fascinating thread in the novel. King paints him less like a traditional polished politician and more like some chaotic traveling salesman mixed with a cult leader and pro wrestler. The bikers, the crowds, the cockeyed construction hat, the almost rock-concert atmosphere around him…it all feels strange and theatrical in a way that becomes increasingly unsettling as the story unfolds. King smartly avoids revealing exactly what future horror Johnny sees coming for a long time, which makes Stillson feel like a walking storm cloud throughout the book.

The Wheel of Fortune chapter also really stuck with me. Something about Johnny, Sarah, the carney running the wheel, and that bizarre hot streak of luck gives the whole section this dreamy, ominous energy. King has always been great at writing scenes that feel slightly “off,” like fate quietly rearranging itself in the background while nobody notices yet. That chapter felt like a warning shot for the tragedy to come.

Another underrated piece of the novel is Johnny’s family life, especially the tension between his exhausted father and his deeply religious mother. Vera Smith honestly feels like she wandered in from a darker version of Carrie. Her evangelical obsession and hysterical interpretation of Johnny’s accident create so much emotional pressure in the household. Meanwhile, Johnny’s dad ends up being one of the most sympathetic characters in the entire story. Which is why I was disappointed when he mostly fades from the book later on. After Vera dies, it feels like some of the emotional texture disappears with her. The book loses a little of its spark after that point.

And that’s probably my biggest issue with The Dead Zone overall: the middle section drags. Hard. There’s a long stretch where the momentum just sort of evaporates, and unlike some of King’s longer books, the prose here doesn’t always compensate for it. Usually King can carry you through slower chapters with atmosphere, beautiful small-town observations, or unforgettable character moments. Here, I found myself putting the book down for days at a time without really feeling pulled back in. The novel feels about 100-200 pages longer than it needed to be.

There are also moments where you can feel echoes of other King stories bleeding into this one. The psychic glimpses almost feel like a cousin to the time-bending mechanics of 11/22/63. Stillson carries shades of the populist mob-energy King explores in Under the Dome. Vera’s religious fanaticism recalls Carrie. None of that ruins the book, but it does make The Dead Zone feel slightly less original compared to some of King’s very best work.

That said…the ending absolutely lands (spoiler warning). And it lands in a way that feels deeply “Stephen King.” Johnny believes he may have to become a killer in order to stop Stillson from becoming president. But Stillson’s cowardly act shatters the carefully constructed image he built throughout the novel and changes the path of his history. Johnny dies knowing he altered the future without fully sacrificing his humanity in the process. That’s poetic justice if I’ve ever seen it.

Overall, I liked The Dead Zone more than I loved it. The highs are very high. The emotional core works. The political storyline becomes increasingly compelling. The opening and ending are both fantastic. But the middle stretch really loses steam, and the book never fully reaches the emotional or atmospheric heights of King’s absolute classics for me.

Still very much worth reading, but ranked in the third tier of Stephen King favorability for me.

Rating: 7/10

Book Review: The Dark Half

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By Stephen King

Finished 3/22/26

After just finishing The Dark Half, my feelings on the novel are oddly similar to the core of the story. Meaning, I’m in the middle on how I feel about it. I liked it, didn’t love it, but it’s one of those books I’ve kept thinking about after finishing, which usually means there’s something there.

The whole thing is really about duality, but in a very literal, uncomfortable way. Not just “you have a dark side,” but what happens if that side is actually the version of you that works. The one that succeeds. The one people respond to. And what if that version doesn’t want to stay contained.

That idea carries the book more than anything else.

What I liked most was how my perception of the main character Thad kept shifting. Early on he feels like a guy who kind of gamed the system. Created a pen name (George Stark), wrote under it, found success that way. It almost feels a little cheap at first. But as the story goes on, that explanation stops working. It starts to feel less like something he chose and more like something that happened to him. Like he’s not fully in control of where that other side came from or what it wants.

That’s where King is always good. He takes something that seems explainable and slowly makes it feel inevitable.

And by the end, you’re not really asking “how does this end,” you’re asking what he’s willing to do. Does he give in to it? Does he fight it? Is it even possible to separate the two? There’s a version of this story where it’s clearly good vs evil, but this never really lets you settle into that.

I also liked the police character (Sheriff Alan Pangborn) assigned to all the murders occurring. He starts as the only grounded person in the story, trying to apply logic to something that should make sense. And then over time, that just breaks down. Watching someone slowly accept that the rules they rely on don’t apply here is always a strong move in King books.

Where it lost me a bit is that the world didn’t feel as full as his best stuff. Outside of Thad and his other half, there isn’t a ton of depth to the other characters. His wife Liz gets some attention, but overall it feels more contained than what I usually expect from him.

At the same time, that probably helped it. It’s shorter, tighter, and it doesn’t drag. Honestly if this was a longer book, I might not have finished it. The story itself isn’t strong enough to carry an extra couple hundred pages.

There was also something I kept expecting to connect that never really did. The thread with his kids felt like it was pointing toward something bigger, especially given the whole duality theme, and it just sort of… doesn’t go there. Maybe that’s intentional, maybe it’s just left open, but it felt like there was another layer that could’ve been pulled in.

The ending is where it really picked up for me. It’s darker than I expected, even for King. Not just in what happens, but in the feeling it leaves you with (sparrows—mythology—psychopomps—an insane feather-swarming occurrence etched forever in my memory with them and Thad/George). It doesn’t wrap things up cleanly. It feels more like a warning than a resolution. Like even when something is “over,” it might not actually be finished.

I wouldn’t put this in his top tier, but it has one of his more interesting core ideas. It almost feels like a more personal book about identity and the cost of success, just told through a horror lens.

Rating: 7/10

What’s next: hoping I haven’t hit the ceiling on King books yet. Moving on to The Death Zone next and have high hopes!

Book Review: Elevation

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By Stephen King

Finished 1/31/26

Elevation is a really beautiful and curious story, a novella that finds the perfect balance of getting somewhat deep on the important characters while also moving quickly through the narrative. Stephen King keeps the focus intentionally small, centering the story on only a handful of people and allowing their relationships to carry the emotional weight of the book.

The premise itself is simple but incredibly intriguing. Scott, a big fella, starts to feel like he’s losing weight. His mood improves, he has more pep in his step, and he generally feels better. The strange part is that nothing about him physically changes. Yet when he jumps on the scale, he definitely is losing weight. Week after week he drops about three pounds, even though his body never seems to change shape. It’s one of those classic Stephen King ideas—slightly surreal but presented in a very grounded way that makes you immediately curious about where it’s going.

What makes the novella work so well is how King uses that strange premise to explore the people around Scott rather than turning it into a full-blown mystery. Scott spends time talking with an elder doctor friend about what’s happening to him, and he also develops an unexpected relationship with two gay women who live nearby and run a restaurant. The town treats them poorly, which gives the story an interesting social undercurrent, but the real focus is on how Scott gradually earns their trust and friendship.

The story moves quickly but never feels rushed. King gives just enough time to the key moments—especially a local 10K race that becomes one of the emotional highlights of the book—while keeping the overall narrative tight and focused. Because the book is so short, there’s almost no wasted space. Every scene either deepens Scott’s relationships or pushes the strange premise forward.

What stood out most to me is how uplifting the story ultimately feels. Despite the unusual situation Scott finds himself in, the tone never becomes dark or heavy. Instead it slowly turns into something about letting the weight off your shoulders and realizing what’s actually important in life—friendship, kindness, and human connection.

Elevation may be a small story in terms of length, but it leaves a surprisingly strong impression. It’s thoughtful, a little strange in the best Stephen King way, and a perfect example of how effective a novella can be when it focuses on character and theme rather than scale.

Rating: 9/10 — amazing and quick read.

Book Review: Carrie

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By Stephen King

Finished 1/22/26

Carrie is just a well-written—and honestly horrifying—story. It’s one of Stephen King’s most well-known books, so there’s probably no huge need to summarize the entire plot, except for my own memory. What stands out immediately is how simple the premise is and how effectively King turns that simplicity into something unsettling and tragic.

The novel centers on Carrie White, a quiet and painfully awkward high school girl who is brought up by an extremely religious mother determined to force Carrie to follow in her footsteps. That upbringing leaves Carrie completely unprepared for normal parts of life, including a now-famous scene early in the book where she experiences her first period in the girls’ locker room shower. The other girls mock her mercilessly because she has no idea what is happening. It’s a scene that is both uncomfortable and heartbreaking, and it really sets the tone for the rest of the story.

The cruelty from her classmates leads to consequences for some of the girls, including detention that threatens their ability to attend prom. One of them, Chris, refuses the punishment and becomes determined to get revenge on Carrie. Meanwhile another student, Sue Snell, actually feels guilty about what happened and encourages her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to prom as a genuine act of kindness. That decision creates one of the most emotionally interesting parts of the book because, for a brief moment, it seems like Carrie might finally be accepted.

Of course, this is a Stephen King story, and things don’t stay hopeful for long. What begins as a simple act of teenage cruelty eventually escalates into something far darker, especially once Carrie’s telekinetic abilities start to emerge. The famous prom sequence is chaotic and terrifying, and it transforms the novel from a story about bullying into something much larger and more destructive.

One of the most interesting aspects of Carrie is the way King structures the book. Instead of telling the story in a completely straightforward way, he jumps between multiple perspectives and formats—Sue Snell’s later reflections, excerpts from police interviews with survivors, and even newspaper articles examining what happened. That approach gives the novel a strange documentary-like feeling, as if the reader is piecing together the aftermath of an event that shocked an entire town.

Reading it now, it’s also fascinating to see such early writing from King. The voice isn’t quite as polished as some of his later work, but the ideas are already incredibly strong. You can clearly see the themes that would come to define much of his career: social cruelty, small-town pressure, and the terrifying consequences of power appearing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even decades later, Carrie still feels tense, tragic, and strangely sympathetic toward its central character. It’s easy to see why it became such an iconic story.

Rating: 8.5/10

Book Review: Gwendy’s Button Box and Gwendy’s Magic Feather

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By Stephen King & Richard Chizmar

Finished 1/6/26 and 1/13/26

Gwendy’s Button Box and Gwendy’s Magic Feather make for a fascinating but uneven pair of novellas, built around an interesting concept that starts strong but loses some momentum along the way. The first book—co-written by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar—is a fun, very fast read at just 166 pages, something that can easily be finished in a single day. It’s highly engaging and reads somewhat like a King story, though with noticeably less character, setting, and plot development than many of his longer works.

The story centers on a very young girl named Gwendy whose life changes when a mysterious man named Richard Ferris suddenly appears and gives her a strange wooden box. The box has several buttons: seven colored ones for each continent, a red button that can grant “whatever you want,” a black button she eventually calls the “cancer button,” and a small lever that spits out delicious chocolates. Ferris gives almost no real guidance about how the box should be used and then disappears, leaving Gwendy alone with something that clearly carries enormous power.

What makes the premise so compelling is the uncertainty surrounding Ferris himself. He’s not quite as openly sinister as some of King’s classic villains—especially someone like Randall Flagg—but there’s something undeniably creepy about him. You never really know if he has good intentions or if he’s simply testing people by placing dangerous power in their hands. Watching how Gwendy grows up with the box quietly influencing her life is the most interesting part of the story.

The first novella moves quickly but still manages to deliver a few dark and memorable moments. At times it almost feels like a moral fable about temptation and responsibility, exploring what happens when someone ordinary is handed something capable of enormous consequences. The pacing and simplicity actually work in its favor, even if the story occasionally feels a little thin.

The sequel, Gwendy’s Magic Feather, shifts the story forward many years and follows Gwendy as an adult returning to Castle Rock around Christmas and New Year’s. This time she’s a congresswoman, and the mysterious box once again finds its way back into her life. Unfortunately the difference in authorship becomes noticeable here. This second installment is written solely by Richard Chizmar, and the writing often feels more half-baked and predictable compared with the first book.

The ideas are still interesting—there are magical events, personal struggles, and even a mystery involving murdered girls—but the execution doesn’t feel nearly as sharp. The pacing is slower in places, and the narrative lacks some of the tension and atmosphere that made the original novella so engaging. While it’s still a quick and readable story, it doesn’t quite capture the same sense of intrigue surrounding the box or the character of Richard Ferris.

Taken together, the two books are still enjoyable as a concept. The mysterious box, the moral ambiguity behind its powers, and the lingering presence of Ferris make the series intriguing enough to keep exploring. With Stephen King returning as a co-writer for the third book, there’s reason to hope the story regains some of the energy that made the first installment so compelling (but I haven’t quite gotten there yet).

First Book: 7.5/10

Second Book: 6/10

Combined Rating: 7/10

Book Review: The Stand

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By Stephen King

Finished 1/4/26

The Stand is massive in every possible way. At over 1,000 pages, it’s easily one of Stephen King’s biggest and most ambitious novels, both in scope and in the sheer number of characters and storylines it tries to juggle. Finishing it feels a bit like completing a long journey, one that moves from eerie realism to something much larger and more mythic as the story unfolds.

One thing that immediately stood out to me was how glad I am that I didn’t read this before the pandemic. The early sections of the book are almost uncomfortably realistic. King’s fictional virus, known as “Captain Trips,” begins with a lab accident and quickly spreads across the country, wiping out the vast majority of the population. The way people panic, turn on each other, and slowly realize how bad things are becoming feels almost too real at times.

The descriptions of the aftermath are incredibly vivid. There are scenes of tunnels packed with car wrecks and decaying bodies, homes filled with the same, and detailed accounts of what the disease actually does to people as it progresses. King describes the physical symptoms—like the black welts in the throat—with a level of detail that makes the whole situation feel disturbingly believable.

The novel also features probably the most characters of any King book I’ve read so far, and that’s honestly where my only real criticism comes in. It takes literally hundreds of pages to fully get started because the book spends so much time introducing different people and their backstories. At times it becomes hard to keep track of everyone or tell them apart, especially early on.

That said, once the story settles into its main group of characters, it becomes much easier to connect with the ones who really matter. Nick Andros is one of the standouts—a deaf but incredibly smart and compassionate leader who becomes one of the central figures holding the group together. Tom Cullen is another memorable character, a simple and childlike man who ends up playing a surprisingly important role later in the story. And then there’s Stu Redman, who feels like the heart of the novel in many ways. Stu is just an easy character to root for, a steady and decent person trying to navigate a completely broken world.

As the story moves forward, the novel shifts into its larger central theme: the divide between good and evil. Survivors eventually gather into two main groups—Mother Abigail leading the community in Boulder, and Randall Flagg building his own society in Las Vegas. The conflict between those two sides becomes the core of the book, though King keeps things interesting by occasionally showing that the moral lines aren’t always as simple as they appear.

Some of the most memorable moments come late in the novel, when the tension between the two sides finally reaches its breaking point. The events surrounding the confrontation with Flagg’s followers are intense, strange, and very much in line with King’s tendency to mix horror with something almost supernatural.

In the end, The Stand feels like one of King’s most ambitious books—an enormous story about survival, morality, and what people do when the structure of society disappears. It can be a little slow getting started, and the huge cast of characters sometimes makes things harder to follow, but the scale and imagination behind the story make it hard not to admire.

It’s definitely up there with his best work, even if it’s not quite my personal favorite.

Rating: 8.5/10

Book Review: Holly

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By Stephen King

Finished 9/20/25

Holly is a fabulous, very traditional-feeling mystery that shows Stephen King leaning more into detective fiction than outright horror. The story follows private investigator Holly Gibney, who unexpectedly strikes it rich after inheriting money from her deceased mother—someone she openly despised—but chooses to keep working anyway. That decision sets the stage for a case that slowly unfolds into something far darker than it initially appears.

The mystery begins with several missing people and Holly trying to figure out what connects them. As the investigation develops, it becomes clear that the victims are linked in ways that no one initially expects. The trail eventually leads to a pair of professors, Em and Roddy Harris, whose disturbing secret centers around a belief that consuming certain “nutrients”—particularly human organs—can keep them living longer and healthier lives. The idea is grotesque, but King presents it in a way that feels almost clinical, which somehow makes it even creepier.

One of the strongest parts of the novel is Holly herself. She’s a really interesting character you just want to root for. Holly is thoughtful, careful, and often unsure of herself, but she has a persistence that makes her a compelling detective. The relationships around her help give the book its emotional center, especially the dynamic between Holly, Jerome, and Jerome’s sister Barbara, who helps out at the agency.

Barbara’s own storyline ends up becoming surprisingly important. She develops a connection with an older poet professor named Olivia, a character who is warm, funny, and genuinely kind. Through that relationship, Barbara begins uncovering pieces of information that eventually help Holly connect the dots in her investigation. Those smaller character interactions add a lot of depth to the story and keep it from feeling like just a straightforward procedural.

King also does a great job making the villains especially detestable. Em and Roddy Harris are arrogant, snobby, and convinced they are smarter and better than everyone else. Their self-importance and cruelty make it easy to root for their downfall (tied to their unique, ahem, “diet”) as the story builds toward its final confrontation.

In the end, what really carries Holly are the relationships—Holly working through the case, Jerome and Barbara supporting her, and even Holly’s partner Pete helping from a distance while dealing with COVID. Those connections give the book warmth even as the mystery itself becomes darker and more dangerous.

By the final pages, Holly has survived another brutal case and is already looking toward the next one. After finishing the book, it’s easy to feel the same way.

Rating: 8.5/10

Book Review: The Institute

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By Stephen King

Finished 8/14/25

The Institute is another near-perfect Stephen King read and one that feels a little different from many of his other books. At its core, it’s a story about telekinetic and telepathic kids who are kidnapped from their homes and forced to live inside a mysterious facility known as the Institute. The children are told one thing about why they’re there, but it becomes increasingly clear that something far darker is happening behind the scenes.

The premise itself is immediately compelling. These kids are taken from their families and placed into a controlled environment where they are studied, tested, and experimented on. The Institute is divided into two main sections—Front Half and Back Half—and the progression between the two creates a constant sense of tension as the story unfolds. Even early on, there’s a lingering feeling that things are going to get worse the deeper the story goes.

What really makes the novel work, though, is the way King structures the narrative. The book follows three main storylines that slowly move toward each other. One follows Luke, the incredibly smart young boy trying to figure out how to escape the Institute. Another focuses on Tim, a former cop who is now working as a night watchman in a small town. The third storyline centers on the people actually running the Institute, including Mrs. Sigsby and her staff as they attempt to maintain control and track down problems inside the facility.

Watching those three threads gradually come together is where the book really shines. Each storyline is interesting on its own, but when they start intersecting the tension ramps up in a very satisfying way. King has always been great at juggling multiple perspectives, and here it feels especially effective.

The kids themselves are also a major strength of the novel. Luke forms friendships with several of the other children inside the Institute, and those relationships give the story real emotional weight. Characters like Maureen, the maid who begins to feel guilty about what’s happening, add an extra layer to the narrative by showing that not everyone inside the system fully believes in what they’re doing.

One of the most interesting elements of the book is the larger question behind the Institute’s existence. Without giving too much away, the story eventually raises the idea that the people running the operation believe they are doing something necessary for the greater good. That moral tension—whether terrible actions can ever be justified if the outcome supposedly saves lives—adds a philosophical layer that sticks with you long after finishing the book.

What makes The Institute stand out is how well all these pieces come together: the mystery of the facility, the friendships among the kids, the outside investigation slowly building, and the bigger questions about power and control. It feels like classic Stephen King storytelling but with a slightly different angle than many of his other novels.

For me, it ended up being one of the most engaging King books I’ve read.

Rating: 9.9/10