A review by secre
Siege, by Sarah Mussi
4.0
What do you do when the worst happens? When two boys storm into your detention, shoot your teacher in the head and get the rest of the class to file out to their potential deaths? What do you do when your decisions led to a child being shot because your chances of survival were better without her? What do you do when you have a nasty suspicion that your own brother is in that room full of children and that he’s holding a gun? Most importantly, what do you do when nothing makes sense? When something simply doesn’t add up and there seem to be reasons behind the reasons?
Siege is gritty and violet, it’s powerful and unrelenting, grabbing hold of you by the gut, refusing to let go until the last page has been turned. It’s 2020 UK and the right wing nut jobs are in control, austerity measures have segregated society. Free healthcare is a thing of the past and Leah’s mother is mire deep in depression with no available help, leaving Leah to run the family. Parents with no money have no choice but to send their children to the most basic of schools, and perhaps even that slim chance of education is now at risk from the Volunteer Programs. By Volunteer Programs, read enforced slave labour at the expense of an education because really, what are these kids good for?
From the moment the first shots are fired to the bitter end this is a devastating roller coaster ride as you travel with Leah through the air ducts, trying to stay alive but also desperately trying to get out and even more importantly perhaps, find answers. No punches are pulled. The Lock Down system that is meant to be so good at stopping people from getting in is now what I trapping Leah in and despite contact with the outside world, nobody looks to be shutting it down. The Eternal Knights have gained control of the CCTV and therefore the corridors and Leah finds out early that mistakes will be costly. From the air vents to the corridors, your world narrows down to this one day and this single girl’s fear and bravery.
But what is perhaps most effective of all at drawing you in, is that this isn’t just a school shooting story; so well known by now in America at least. It is of course a school shooting story and has all of the intense drama and nail biting tension of a fight for your life against your own school peers. But it isn’t just that, it’s far deeper. And where Sarah Mussi really succeeds here is in creating a political scene outside of the school walls, despite all of the action taking place within one day and never leaving those walls. Because right from the very start, Leah starts asking some difficult questions; where did those boys get the money for the guns? Where did they get the brains to plan this? Something isn’t sitting right. Someone has an ulterior motive.
Narrated from a first person perspective, you are stuck inside Leah Jacksons head from beginning to end and it is therefore a remarkably good job that Leah Jackson isn’t overly annoying. Her character is well done although perhaps at times a trifle inconsistent as sometimes her vocabulary and thought processes seem to belong to a young teenager rather than sixteen years old. Other times her thought processes and conclusions are far more adult and with more apparent life experience behind them than she actually has. Her vocabulary is rather limited as well, although that’s to be expected in a world where we don’t bother to educate the poor kids. Overall, she is a realistic teenager and you easily get behind her and into her head as she crawls and scurries, trying to survive but also trying to save.
There is one thing to really remember before picking this book up though and that is that it truly doesn’t pull its punches. People die. Children die. Children as young as six are executed against the bookcase for being scared and in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a fast paced and dramatic book that doesn’t let you think, doesn’t let you breathe as it propels you through the worst day in Leah’s life and you are in her thoughts, in her head constantly. There is no respite. It’s a stunningly powerful and immersive book but don’t get me wrong, it is disturbing and it is terrifying. Not least because it could happen. Give the Tory’s another ten years in power and it could happen. The events are not all that far away from reality. And that is perhaps more scary than the violence.
===Do I Recommend?===
Yes. This is the second of Sarah Mussi’s books that I have read with the first being _Riot_. That I found to be overly simplistic with a soppy romance arc ruining it and an unrealistic main character who also happened to be extremely annoying. I’m glad that I didn’t let it stop me from reading this. Because this is disturbing and powerful, gutsy and gripping and was read in one sitting from beginning to end. It isn’t a book for young children for obvious reasons but it’s one of the more powerful teenage dystopian fiction books I have read in a long while.
Siege is gritty and violet, it’s powerful and unrelenting, grabbing hold of you by the gut, refusing to let go until the last page has been turned. It’s 2020 UK and the right wing nut jobs are in control, austerity measures have segregated society. Free healthcare is a thing of the past and Leah’s mother is mire deep in depression with no available help, leaving Leah to run the family. Parents with no money have no choice but to send their children to the most basic of schools, and perhaps even that slim chance of education is now at risk from the Volunteer Programs. By Volunteer Programs, read enforced slave labour at the expense of an education because really, what are these kids good for?
From the moment the first shots are fired to the bitter end this is a devastating roller coaster ride as you travel with Leah through the air ducts, trying to stay alive but also desperately trying to get out and even more importantly perhaps, find answers. No punches are pulled. The Lock Down system that is meant to be so good at stopping people from getting in is now what I trapping Leah in and despite contact with the outside world, nobody looks to be shutting it down. The Eternal Knights have gained control of the CCTV and therefore the corridors and Leah finds out early that mistakes will be costly. From the air vents to the corridors, your world narrows down to this one day and this single girl’s fear and bravery.
But what is perhaps most effective of all at drawing you in, is that this isn’t just a school shooting story; so well known by now in America at least. It is of course a school shooting story and has all of the intense drama and nail biting tension of a fight for your life against your own school peers. But it isn’t just that, it’s far deeper. And where Sarah Mussi really succeeds here is in creating a political scene outside of the school walls, despite all of the action taking place within one day and never leaving those walls. Because right from the very start, Leah starts asking some difficult questions; where did those boys get the money for the guns? Where did they get the brains to plan this? Something isn’t sitting right. Someone has an ulterior motive.
Narrated from a first person perspective, you are stuck inside Leah Jacksons head from beginning to end and it is therefore a remarkably good job that Leah Jackson isn’t overly annoying. Her character is well done although perhaps at times a trifle inconsistent as sometimes her vocabulary and thought processes seem to belong to a young teenager rather than sixteen years old. Other times her thought processes and conclusions are far more adult and with more apparent life experience behind them than she actually has. Her vocabulary is rather limited as well, although that’s to be expected in a world where we don’t bother to educate the poor kids. Overall, she is a realistic teenager and you easily get behind her and into her head as she crawls and scurries, trying to survive but also trying to save.
There is one thing to really remember before picking this book up though and that is that it truly doesn’t pull its punches. People die. Children die. Children as young as six are executed against the bookcase for being scared and in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a fast paced and dramatic book that doesn’t let you think, doesn’t let you breathe as it propels you through the worst day in Leah’s life and you are in her thoughts, in her head constantly. There is no respite. It’s a stunningly powerful and immersive book but don’t get me wrong, it is disturbing and it is terrifying. Not least because it could happen. Give the Tory’s another ten years in power and it could happen. The events are not all that far away from reality. And that is perhaps more scary than the violence.
===Do I Recommend?===
Yes. This is the second of Sarah Mussi’s books that I have read with the first being _Riot_. That I found to be overly simplistic with a soppy romance arc ruining it and an unrealistic main character who also happened to be extremely annoying. I’m glad that I didn’t let it stop me from reading this. Because this is disturbing and powerful, gutsy and gripping and was read in one sitting from beginning to end. It isn’t a book for young children for obvious reasons but it’s one of the more powerful teenage dystopian fiction books I have read in a long while.