Fantastic story let down by the narration

The story of Brexit and the Boris years told in impressive details. However, the narration sounds like an AI bot. Strange stresses and a robotic read. This is a shame as it lets down an otherwise excellent book.

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2 people found this helpful

Great read

A brilliant account of what happened at the time, the four books have been great.

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Fascinating story

This is the final book in the Brexit series and once again Tim Shipman has written a definitive account, this time of the immediate lead up to and the post Brexit period. But - where is Rupert Farley as narrator? I so missed his style in narrating the books, the narrator is ok once you get used to him but Farley hit just the right note in narrating the other books. He’s missed on this one.

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2 people found this helpful

Be careful what you wish for!

I bought this as I heard Tim Shipman on the radio. Although not that interested in the minutiae of Brexit but an avid follower of political events, I found the book entertaining and very interesting with Shipman being able to a convey the close and often intense, frustrating political atmosphere within no 10. I had forgotten how much has happened, just from 2019 onwards and hope that we now have catharsis and a return to stable government. Shipman also gives a brief overview to the period 2016 to 2024, which I found useful. The only criticism is that I would have liked to known more about the Covid years to highlight Boris’ lack of leadership and the relationship with Sunak and the analysis of why the Tory party allowed Truss to stand when they knew what a disaster she’d be. An idea for a future book?

The narrator isn’t as bad as the previous reviewer stated- he does a perfunctory job.

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A triumphant conclusion to a fascinating quartet

In terms of content this final book in Shipman's Brexit saga is just as engrossing, fascinating, hilarious and depressing as the previous three. It takes a real gift to make some of the more tedious drudgery of political process and chicanery interesting, and Shipman does it here just as well as he does in the earlier books.

A particular highlight for me was explaining why the (utterly fatuous and misnamed, we HAD a People's Vote with the referendum itself!) People's Vote campaign floundered at a key time due to egos, something that i had little knowledge of and hasn't really ever been discussed elsewhere. As with the first book in this series in particular (All Out War) an overriding sense for me was that NOBODY comes out of the various scheming well, and as with everything in this series this meant that i absolutely feel that the author is unbiased, combining masterful storytelling with clear objective judgments.

I have to agree with other reviews bemoaning the narration though; I have no idea why Rupert Farley didn't return to finish the job he carried out so expertly in the previous books, but the narrator here is several rungs below his brilliant reading and places strange stresses on some words and at times sounds like an automaton. Unfortunately this really did affect my enjoyment, especially across the 43 hours this runs for,

Shipman has received multiple accolades for this series and deserves them; he expertly dissects motives, events and outcomes, and makes it a gripping ride. As with most series of books this book whilst great on its own can't properly be appreciated and digested without reading/listening to the previous ones and in order; the narration didn't completely stop me thoroughly enjoying this listen as much as the others; these are 4 credits really well used!!

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