This is a brief, amusing read. It's a very good parody of Alice in Wonderland (complete with some very clever illustrations which closely mirror the great Tenniel originals), which excoriates the Leave campaign in the Brexit referendum.

Alice in Brexitland is a very clever piece of work, because "Leavis Carroll" has the skill to stick closely to some of the original scenes and characters in Alice while neatly skewering some of the Brexit events and people. The author is very obviously opposed to Brexit so it's not at all even-handed (although Jeremy Corbyn is mercilessly satirised) but it is clever enough and accurate enough to remain witty pretty well throughout.

I didn't find this laugh-out-loud funny, and the idea was beginning to pall a little by the end, but it's an entertaining read which I can recommend for a diverting hour or two.

A timely read which, brilliantly executed with wit and sharpness. You don't have to have a political view to appreciate this clever piece of writing. Sharp observations and a rearranging of children's works, it re-enforces the expression '...out of the mouth of babes....' It is, indeed, a mad,mad world

Without giving away too much, I have to say that quite a few times through reading this book I found myself giggling away to myself. If you're anything like me when it comes to election time you recognise how important it is that we each vote, but tend to get really P-ed off with all the constant backbiting that goes on, the arguments and the sheer drivel and 'empty promises' that get made.

Whilst this book doesn't feature on a general election - what we're going to the polls for in a few days - it does relay the many thoughts and feelings when the UK voted to leave the EU and Brexit became a thing.

The characters are all based on the traditional children's story of Alice in Wonderland - with a twist of going down a rabbit hole with Dave the white rabbit (who sounded like he'd gone to a posh expensive school for rabbits!) heading down the hole to BrexitLand.

People who find politics - especially right now - a joke will enjoy this book, and even though it does make digs at Polish workers (Ahem! I am of Polish descent (My Grandfather came to the UK in WW2 to escape the Nazi's who had tortured his family before his own eyes - and just whilst we're on it... he immediately signed up with the British Army and fought against the Nazi's) - so you know... be careful as it can really offend some people! They aren't the only Europeans who have come to the UK recently from the EU) it is all rather tongue in cheek.

It's a fun enjoyable read and one that I'm sure people will enjoy reading as it's just a fairly quick read.

It's not going to become the "new" classic, but right now, with the times we are living in, and the right audience, it could be a fun read of the moment.

So, my overall rating has to be 3/5 on this one.

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Random House UK and Ebury Publishing for allowing me to read and review this ARC. This is my honest and unbiased opinion of Alice in Brexitland.

The hot topic in the UK currently is BREXIT, especially with a general election due in June.

I thought that this parody mimicking Alice in Wonderland, transposed with our views/news on Brexit makes this book an amusing and entertaining inventory of events. It’s especially funny to see the politicians, etc., being portrayed as Wonderland characters.

I think that, in the current political situation, we could do with a light hearted take on events and this book does that. I thought that it was cleverly written and clearly depicted those involved in an amusing way. However, you will not be left feeling any better about leaving the EU if you voted to Remain.

Each chapter leads Alice to meet a new character. David Cameron is depicted as the rabbit leading Alice into Wonderland. Jeremy Corbyn is the Caterpillar, who sits on a toadstool smoking his hookah and being no help to anyone; Humpty Trumpty, perched on a wall he wants the Mexicans to pay for; the Cheshire Twat, who likes to disappear leaving only his grin, a pint, and the smell of scotch eggs remaining; and the terrifying Queen of Heartlessness, who’ll take off your head if you dare question her plan for Brexit. Will Alice ever be able to find anyone who speaks sense?


The pictures are really well drawn and the artist is very talented at capturing the personality of the reality and fantasy of these characters.
Conclusion

This book is cleverly written political satire. It's a short read and portrays the characters well. The story follows similarly to Alice in Wonderland, even including the tea party. By the end, Alice in Brexitland is very frustrated by the characters, which is probably how most of us feel. I really enjoyed the book and I think you will too.

This book deserves a fun 4 stars.

It's a short, topical, satirical novel. It is amusing and entertaining particularly to Tory Remainers. It is clever how the original story of Alice in Wonderland has been re-written using well known political figures. It leans towards the chaos and confusion that the aftermath of the Brexit referendum caused as well as the lies, lack of information and contradictions from both camps. Alice tries to unpick the mysteries. Thank you for letting me read it. I shall post the review on Amazon, Facebook and my blog.

A great book to read about Brexit and I found myself nodding away reading through the chapters with how the book was written ie we haven't a bloody clue!

This short and very funny parody features major contemporary politicians as characters in the reworked Lewis Carroll fantasy. Super illustrations by Ollie Mann emulate the original Tenniel illustrations. The text closely follows the original tales of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and I particularly enjoyed the verse. This along with the chapter titles cleverly mirror Carroll's writing. Rather than starting by Alice following a white rabbit down a rabbit hole, the heroine in this tale follows David Camerabbit down the Brexit-hole. There she meets characters such as the Cheshire Twat (Nigel Farage), the Queen of Heartlessness (Theresa May) and Trumpty Dumpty who brilliantly falls off the wall he has had constructed and is not put back together again.
I would have liked to see what the author, Lucien Young, (wrting as Leavis Carroll) made of the Scottish situation but maybe that can be a future parody based on the Hunting of the Snark!

I cried with laughter. I wept with despair at the stupidity of people. The characterisation was brilliant - I'll never, ever forget Trumpty Dumpty!
An excellent satire.....but with a message. And the end was very thought-provoking. Along the lines of "be careful what you wish for".

While I've never particularly liked the original Alice in Wonderland I do love political comedy and so I had my fingers firmly crossed when I put in my request for this.

This is an amusing read and while it was entertaining I have to admit it wasn't as funny as I'd expected and hoped.

The story follows young Alice on 23rd June 2016 referendum day as she follows David Camerabbit down the rabbit hole.
Once there she reads the Daily Murdoch with its tales of doom and gloom and becomes so angry that she grows and grows as her anger grows.
Who knew the EU was so evil?
Then when she's too big to fit in the tunnel she spots the other newspaper the Gordian which reassures her (although its tone was a little smug) as see reads she shrinks back to normal size and continues her journey.
She then comes across the general public:

‘We call ourselves the General Public,’ said the vole, ‘for we only know things in general and have no grasp of detail.'

‘New?’ said the fox, with a suspicious look. ‘How did you come to be in this forest?’
'I swam here,’ said Alice.
'Swam here?’ said the fox, now baring his teeth. ‘So you’re an immigrant! An illegal immigrant!’
'Oh, don’t be like that,’ said Alice, ‘for I’ve had such a difficult time. I had to swim for miles and miles. I might well have drowned!’
'And it would have served you right!’ said the cock. ‘You’re probably a criminal, or worse, a health tourist!’
'Bloody little girls,’ said the duck, ‘coming over here and stealing our jobs.’
'I don’t want your beastly job!’ said Alice, taken aback. ‘In fact, I’ve never had a job in my life.’
‘SHE’S ON BENEFITS!’ cried the cock, and almost fell off his perch, such was his excitement.
By now the crowd had become quite mutinous and Alice could hear shouts of, ‘Go back to where you came from!’ and ‘British jobs for British workers!’

Alice continues on and meets Corbyn-pillar and then The Cheshire Twat and travels on his back over to American.
Here she meets the July Forth hare but the Mad Tea Party isn't quite as good as she'd expected since all the tea has been dumped in the harbour.

She discovers the Americans get their news from Fox Cos they are always truthful Did you know that Hillary Eats babies to stay youthful?

And then......drum roll.......it's Trumpty Dumpty
This creature was more peculiar than any Alice had yet encountered. He was not fully an egg, nor could you say he was quite a man, but somehow existed in between the two states. He had orange skin, squinty eyes and a puckered little mouth that reminded Alice of her cat’s bottom. On top of all this lay a thatch of golden hair, much the same colour as Alice’s, but of a texture that she had never seen before. In his hands he held a smartphone, whose screen he jabbed with stubby fingers. He seemed as angry as an egg could be, unless it were actually boiling in water, and, as he jabbed, strange words burbled from his lips. ‘Horrible… Bigly… Alec Baldwin… SAD!’ This piqued Alice’s interest all the more. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘but my name is Alice and—’ ‘Shut up!’ cried the Egg. ‘I’m tweeting.’

It's an amusing read but I think my expectations were just too high, while I don't watch very much TV I do watch 'Have I Got News For You' 'The Last Leg' 'Mock the Week' and 'Saturday Night Live' all of which are hilarious at times and I wanted this to make me really laugh.

I voluntarily read a review copy kindly provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK, Ebury Publishing.

Umm. Yes. So. I read this. A year on and I'm still not thrilled about Brexit. I have a friend who is involved with working and I have absolute confidence that they are doing the best that they can, I can understand the positive arguments from the other side but as a French graduate, I still feel a sense of mourning. I'm living in a country that isn't what I thought it was. However. I get really queasy about Alice in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll was weird and creepy and took inappropriate pictures of children and over the past few years, a couple too many people have told me that it represents some form of grooming for me to be able to see it as a piece of innocent whimsy. But it does capture something of the black-is-white-double-think which has come to dominate a lot of the mainstream political rhetoric over the past year, so I tried to come to Alice in Brexitland with an open mind.

It is an undoubtedly clever piece of work. Alice goes down the rabbit-hole following the White Rabbit called Dave Camerabbit who has caused all this mess, the Corbynpillar, Trumpty-Dumpty (the egg who tweets!), the Cheshire Twat who leaves behind only a grin and his pint and the Queen of Heartlessness who will fly into a rage if her plans are questioned. She sees the Daily Murdoch who screams hatred and the Gordian who is much more reassuring but rather smug. Alice meets Tweedleboz and Tweedlegove and witnesses as one of them stabs the other in the back. While the prose attempts to fizz with playfulness, there is a deep anger seething beneath the text that stops it from being quite the light and amusing read it tries to be.

Reading this, seeing the absurdity of Lewis Carroll merged with the absurdity that was last June - well - it felt incredibly depressing. When one considers the lies, self-interest and then extra lies that went into the campaign, any result was going to cause paid and sow discord. We will just have to live with the consequences but I find it difficult to laugh at them. As Alice wakes up on the riverbank and discovers it was all a dream, I felt unreasonably irritated, jealous of her hearing a Remain result. And then peeved on top when Young proclaims rather inartistically that all of the celebrities who died last year are alive once more. We are through the Looking Glass but I don't care to be reminded in this way.

A short retelling of Alice reflecting the events of Brexit. It reads well, with some very apt caricatures. Teresa, Dave, JC, Nigel, Boris and Michael all have their part to play. Some brilliant reworkings of well-known extracts from the original Alice. But very close to the bone on several occasions.

Alice in Brexitland is a really good pastiche of Lewis Carroll’s writing style – both in the humour, the political commentary (check out Martin Gardiner’s Annotated Alice if you don’t think Carroll did politics) and in its poetry. Most of today’s best known (if not loved) political figures are featured and the Brexit plot is slotted ingeniously into the original. There are slightly more bottom-based gags than Carroll used but, to be fair, he didn’t have a politician with a name for passing wind to contend with… I’m not usually a fan of topical humour books – I like my funnies to have some staying power – but this one tickled me and has earned its place on my bookshelves for more than just its Alice credentials.

I love Alice in Wonderland and I enjoy politics. I’m one of those rare people who manages to remain quite calm while discussing politics, so despite not being a fan of comedy I had to give this a go. One might say I was “curiouser and curiouser”. I’m sure I’ve heard that somewhere before.

This story is a quick and funny read, which had me laughing out loud in numerous places. I have to say, I loved the name Trumpty Dumpty. The illustrations were also an entertaining touch.

Alice in Brexitland is written from the viewpoint that Brexit is a crazy idea, but I reckon it will be enjoyed by readers on both sides of the debate, although I was on the fence of the Brexit debate for quite a while, so I didn’t have particularly extreme views either way.

This is definitely one I recommend if you like the sound of the blurb.

Loved the illustrations. Clever book based on Alice in Wonderland, change from newspaper articles on Brexit. I enjoyed it, quite whimsical!

True to the style of the original Alice in Wonderland but satirically funny with characters drawn from the Brexit campaign. Perhaps would only appeal to those of us who voted remain as it all seems rather a bad dream and I'm not sure those who voted leave would find it funny, but having been in the former cam, I did.. The illustrations are also true to the original with little tweaks to bring them up to the modern situation. A clever resume of the world of madness we find ourselves in and probably the only way to deal with the situation that we have. Basically loved it and would buy for many like minded friends. I also think one would maybe need to have read the original Alice to appreciate it to the full extent, my daughters both hated the original Alice in Wonderland but voted Remain so it'll be interesting to see how they react.

Hilarious and so relevant. I cracked up all the time. Not subtle at all.
The book follows Lewis Carroll's story quite closely, with characters and animals being replaced with political figures and situations with current British and US politics.
I very much enjoyed it

A short, quick read - which is what i expected - I'm not sure I liked it if I'm honest, as although I wasnt offended by the humour it also didn't sit right with me, or amuse.

one of the most patronising, prejudiced and childish books ive ever read. Not sure how you can even publish such blatant hypocrisy and nonsense

Oh, this tickled me greatly! It was clever parody with intelligent links. Particularly the Trumpty Dumpty link between him being an egg and tweeting (but birds tweet) was great. I was chuckling before I even started reading it. The manipulation of the original illustrations is a wonderful touch. Clearly a lot of thought has gone into this book. The poetic elements as well were witty and fun. Whereas I hope there's never another political crisis on this scale that inspires such a book, I really did enjoy it. I haven't stopped telling people about 'this since I started it.

Absolutely brilliant ! Alice finds herself falling into Brexitland, where she encounters everyone from Jeremy Corbyn to Donald Trump! The dialogue, including some superb poetry, had me chuckling from start to finish, and the accompanying illustrations are amazing and a 'must see'. I would definitely recommend this to everyone - leavers and remainers alike. An ideal book to pack for a different holiday read.