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First and foremost, I'd describe The Siege as a very claustrophobic novel. It takes place in Stalingrad during the German assault but I rarely had a sense of a city in this book. It often felt like the characters were living in virtual isolation in the midst of some dystopian wasteland. It always felt the world was far removed. When a character left the apartment I saw not city streets but a kind of anonymous rural landscape. I was never quite convinced the author could see Stalingrad; not once did she make me see it. The novel's drama is almost entirely focused on the fight against starvation and the cold. I found the author went overboard with the effects of starvation as if determined to catalogue every single symptom. It was perhaps realistic but it wasn't very successful in terms of dramatic tension. It began to get very repetitive. The book needed more variety of focus. It's as if she realised this and now and again inserts an omniscient overview of the bigger picture but this didn't work for me. It was telling, not showing.

Its saving grace is the quality of the writing. It's a novel of fine passages of prose rather than memorable characters or intricately plotted and pulsating ley lines. 3.5 stars.