Helen Dunmore

Set against the turbulent backdrop of Leningrad in 1941, an intricately woven tapestry of love and war follows the Levin family--twenty-two-year-old Anna, her young brother Kolya, and their father, Mikhail--as they struggle to survive during the German siege. Reprint.

The Siege

'Remarkable, affecting . . . There are few more interesting stories than this; and few writers who could have told it better' Rachel Cusk, Daily Telegraph Leningrad, September 1941. Hitler orders the German forces to surround the city at the start of the most dangerous, desperate winter in its history. For two pairs of lovers - Anna and Andrei, Anna's novelist father and banned actress Marina - the siege becomes a battle for survival. They will soon discover what it is like to be so hungry you boil shoe leather to make soup, so cold you burn furniture and books. But this is not just a struggle to exist, it is also a fight to keep the spark of hope alive . . . The Siege is a brilliantly imagined novel of war and the wounds it inflicts on ordinary people's lives and a profoundly moving celebration of love, life and survival. 'Literary writing of the highest order set against a background of suffering so intimately reconstructed it is hard to believe that Dunmore was not there' Richard Overy, Sunday Telegraph 'Utterly convincing. A deeply moving account of two love stories in terrible circumstances. The story of their struggle to survive appears simple, as all great literature should . . . A world-class novel' Antony Beevor, The Times 'A remarkable parable of human survival against the odds' Katie Owen, Mail on Sunday

María Belén

I found this book to be rather dull. I liked the premise of the story but I didn't like the writing.

I'm not a fan of purple prose, sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't. But I guess for me it depends a lot on the writer. In this case I didn't like the writing at all. It was a lot of telling and no showing.
I think this is what made the book boring for me. I didn't feel any of all the alleged emotions I was supposed to feel according to the back cover of the book. 

That said, I don't think it's a bad book. I did liked the story, but I wasn't entertained or moved by it.

The Siege

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