YMMV / The Institute

• Catharsis Factor: After chapters of sadism and lack of empathy, seeing any of the Institute's staff facing consequences for their actions:
  • Mrs Sigsby and Stackhouse freaking out after they realise Luke Ellis has escaped, and their lives could be forfeit.
  • Mrs Sigsby begging for her life in terror, after her colleagues consider her death a necessity for the Institute's survival, just how she considered the children's lives.
  • Gladys falling to her death when the Institute is destroyed.
  • The Back Half staff, who are unapologetic sadists who don't even bother to fake decency towards the children, have their own sadism turned on them by the escapees through psychic compulsion. One tazes himself in the mouth to death, and another is last seen slapping herself in the face again and again.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Angsty Surviving Twin Gerda feels like she could have had a strong presence in the revolt due to her strong motivation and implied high power level but just disappears from the plot well before the halfway point.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The entire first half of the book is about a group of kidnapped children who are horribly abused and experimented on by heartless government agents with no real hope of escaping. If you decided to put the book down, we don't blame you.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: A bunch of kids are kidnapped and locked in cages, while the setting is clearly 2016-2019. King himself sarcastically said "There's no way this could actually happen."

---