Another World Book Club discussion

April's read is Stephen King's 2019 book, The Institute.

(Camden County Library patrons can place a hold in Evergreen, on Overdrive, or pick up a copy at the front desk in Osage Beach Library.)

I know it's still kind of early in the month and the book is long, but I really hope someone else reads it. I was very excited for this month's book and it didn't disappoint!

Stephen King is a literary giant for a reason. Honestly, even though I'm a big fan, I have been trying to read other authors and broaden my horizons, so it's been awhile since I have read one of his books. I was immediately hooked and once I started, I couldn't put it down.

I am a big fan of happy endings and triumphing over evil, so I was instantly rooting for the main character and his friends. At the beginning of the book it is easy to decide who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, but later it really does get you to thinking.

So, without giving any spoilers, I found it interesting that at some points of the book, you aren't sure who is the good guy and who is the bad. Do people who are following orders from their boss always know what is really going on? We all know how powerful it is when someone thinks they are right and get others to believe it, too. The workers at the institute do their job because they think it is right. Mrs. Sigsby knows more than the others and feels she is keeping the world in order and safe. But like with any job, there are employees who get to be sadistic and they enjoy it.

I thought this book did an excellent job of weaving the character's points of view and showing how dangerous fallacies can be. I'm not a history buff by any means, but the plot was kind of neat in that America and other countries did do studies involving telepathy, telekinesis and "remote viewing" in the past.

Okay. I finally finished this on Saturday, but it took a bit to gather my thoughts.

I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Stephen King, but I did enjoy this book.

I think it's interesting that the Institute was very careful while recruiting staff to only select people who had already had to twist their sense of morality around the whole greater-good argument, and I'm a bit surprised that it was so easy for them to maintain that everything they did was for the greater good even when faced with the suffering of children. Then again, if you've spent a lot of time in an active war zone it's easy to start looking at anyone who isn't definitively on your side as less-than-human.

I find it fascinating that Mrs. Sigsby didn't have any curiosity whatsoever about how they recruited potential cleaning staff, even though it states in the book that she's the one who actually hired Maureen. (Just another example of how they got too comfortable and complacent with their operation, I guess.) The fact that she grudgingly admitted to herself that Maureen might've been a good spy in another career, while not knowing that's exactly the kind of thing Maureen had done before working for the Institute is ironic (and a nice emphasis on the class snobbery that get's pointed out throughout the whole book).