This book was ok and I did enjoy reading it in a lazy kind of way, but not a lot happens for most of the story, and I never really felt much of a sense of danger or excitement that I was expecting from the synopsis. I liked the descriptions of the castle and setting, and found the shifting moods, loyalties, and motivations of the main characters interesting. The sense of that weird kind of fleeting but intense friendship that can develop between strangers in an unusual situation was this books strongest asset in my mind. ( )

I had listened to The Last Siege before my local library withdrew it, but I remembered only that I'd liked it when I bought it at one of the Friends of the Library bookstores. I love history and would have enjoyed staying overnight in the partially ruined castle (not that I could have gotten in the way Emily, Simon, and Marcus did). The story is told in third person, from Emily's viewpoint. She and Simon are local. Simon comes from a family that is frequently in trouble with the law, although he hasn't been. Marcus is the outsider they meet when, along with other kids, they sneak into the castle grounds during winter, when it's closed to the public.

Marcus, with his love of history, makes the castle seem more than a familiar landmark that the others have seen during school field trips. His longing to get inside infects them. How they manage it without being caught by Mr. Harris, the cantankerous caretaker, takes up the first part of the story. Once they're inside, they find a room that has been restored, but empty. It's Emily's idea for them to spend one night in the castle -- a real adventure. (Mr. Harris did come in, but never found them. Emily's hiding place seems the most painful to me.)

They come prepared with wood, sleeping bags, food, and drink. Simon builds a fire in the room, then they close the door and explore some more. Marcus takes one of the pamphlet guides from the hut in the lobby. He tells the others about the castle, including the siege in which it was captured. It's an enthralling story.

Too bad they overslept. It's not such a big deal for Emily and Simon, but Marcus is terrified about how angry his father will be if he's late getting home. Still, they clean up as best they can before leaving.

A couple of days later, Emily is walking in the woods around the castle and runs into Simon. He saw a sign that someone was inside the ancient building, so they check. Yes, it's Marcus. He's run away from home and is camping in the castle. The story he tells about what happened to him after he got home arouses Simon and Emily's anger and sympathy. Too bad Marcus accidentally made it possible for his father to find him.

The three work together to secure the castle, hence the "last siege". Marcus comes up with some very ingenious ideas. The police, firefighters, and at least one social worker are trying to get them to come out. Simon doesn't trust the police at all. Janet, the social worker who talks to Marcus and Emily from outside, fails to reassure Emily that Marcus will be safe if he leaves.

The tension builds during the hours that the adults try to get in and get them. The descriptions of the cold and fleeing through corridors, arches, up stairs and down, especially in the unsafe parts (during a snow storm when much of the castle roof is gone), certainly kept my attention. I haven't read the Bartimaeus Trilogy, so I wasn't expecting this book to be anything like those books. Perhaps if I had, I would have been disappointed. As it was, I was proud of Emily for the way she handled the climax. ( )

A delightful and well-delivered young adult novel from the author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Last Siege plays with the conventions of fantasy while lightly skirting the genre. Stroud's characters are believable, which is important to the reader's experience, since they are not always credible. Indeed, a major strand of the novel involves the characters' evaluation of the others' reports about their own trustworthiness and experiences. The situation into which the teens are drawn is made plausible by Stroud's shaping of the narrative, and all three characters are largely sympathetic. Stroud may be forgiven a continuity flaw or two (early on, Emily's sled simply disappears from the tale). He picks his details well, and if you're not cold and exhausted by the end, you're not reading attentively enough. ( )

In The Last Siege by Jonathan Stroud, it's winter vacation in the English countryside and Emily is bored. When she and local delinquent Simon meet Marcus, a boy their age with a passion for castles and sieges, they concoct the idea of getting into the local ruined castle and poking around a bit. This plan eventually morphs into an overnight stay at the castle (which is closed to the public). But Marcus has bigger plans than that, and his friends must soon decide where their loyalties lie.

This is well written, wry and intelligent, but somehow it doesn't go far enough. I kept waiting for the real story to begin, and then it was over. And rather less nicely than I had hoped it would turn out, too. It has a more modern twist to it, the kind that would be considered Psychologically Important and analyzed in a classroom—rather than savored by the reader. If it wasn't a rather short audiobook (six discs) and I didn't have some decent pockets of listening time after I started it, I don't know that I would have been motivated to finish.

And yet with all its shortcomings, this story has that quality about it that I first noticed in Stroud's Bartimaeus books: it gave me a hunger to go find another book, another series and swallow it whole, immerse myself in it, recapture a bit of what reading was like when I was a child and it wasn't a luxury, but a part of the everyday experience of life. A book that gives me a hunger for more books can't be that bad. But that desire is probably the most distinctive thing to me about this story. Meh. ( )

I loved the Bartimaeus Trilogy, but this book fell flat for me. ( )