Reviews with content warning for Grief - Spare

Props to Harry for having the courage to tell his own story. He doesn’t hold back on his feelings about his brother, father and especially the press. The book felt like a long answer to “why we left the royal family”. I loved he and Meg’s love story, but I wish he had talked more about his children, as he mentions always wanting to be a father. Much of part 3 was a breathless account of the furor leading to their departure from their royal roles with brief mentions of the birth of the babies, especially Archie. His account of his time at war was enlightening as I don’t normally read firsthand descriptions of modern warfare. I did have to skip/skim a few pages tat touched on hunting and animal cruelty (poaching). His grief for his mother is palpable throughout and I’m sad that the adults in his life failed him in dealing with it as a child. I don’t see how there will be any reconciliation between Harry and his family after this book. William in particular comes across like a jealous, distant, self-absorbed man. I would recommend this book to those interested in the inner-workings of the royal family, the complicated dynamics between family members, and their relationship with truth and the press.

Content Warnings

charlotteappleyard93's review against another edition

Go to review page

reflective fast-paced

3.0

I wanted to read this because it wanted to have a well informed opinion on the Harry and Meghan 'situation'. I think this book is well written and read with a lot of panache by Prince Harry, although his occasional American accent is cringey, and it really goes deep revealing a lot about his life and backstory with many personal anecdotes from his childhood. I did find this an interesting window into a secret world. I think overall this is a very clear and precise account of all the wrong done to Harry and Meghan and I sense his frustration and anger. I think I am sympathetic and the press are clearly vultures but his obsession and also paranoia is quite apparent as well, which is sad to listen to. I found this an entertaining listen, and it probably will intrigue royalists particularly Harry's fraught relationship with William and his progressive views on how the royal family built it's wealth and status. It can be a little to much information at times however, there are several infamous scenes I don't think he needed to spell out! Perhaps this added to it's charm?
Overall I don't care too much about the royals and this cemented that even more but for what it's worth I had a good time listening to it and would recommend for anyone cultivating their views on the royal family.

Content Warnings

dianaschmidty's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

lethaltea's review against another edition

Go to review page

reflective slow-paced

Oh boy. This is a hard one to review. I usually don't assign star ratings to memoirs - it feels sort of wrong to "rate" a person's life and experiences. I am going to stick with that for this review as well.

To start off - the first third of this book was pretty awful. The first part covers the portion of Harry's life pre-military and after the passing of his mother. It is clear that Harry has been suffering from CPTSD and in this section of the book he is very angry - at his brother, his father, the press, the palace - at pretty much everyone. This does come of as really whinny and complaining - which is hard to take from his place of privilege. This portion was definitely a slog to listen through, it was frustrating to listen to Harry vilify the one other person who understands how he is feeling - his brother William.

The second and third parts of the book concern is military service, his marriage to Meghan, and the subsequent implosion of their lives. In these sections, it is a lot easier to be sympathetic to Harry but he still somehow blames the rest of the royal family for all his problems. Don't get me wrong - the treatment of his wife in the media was absolutely disgusting and the royal family didn't do anything to help. But the sequence of events here is really confusing, it is hard to tell when they made the decision to leave England and the circumstances surrounding it.

My main takeaways/thoughts are this:

For a large portion of the book Harry is a bit of dick towards his brother for not speaking out and supporting him and this really rubbed me the wrong way. William is the only person who actually understands the grief Harry is trying to process - he went through it too. He is also the future king and like it or not, he is held to different expectations than Harry so I can understand why he cannot and will not speak out - he doesn't have that sort of freedom.
Harry reiterates several times that "privacy" is his primary goal - but in order to achieve this, he strips the rest of his family of their privacy. I understand this desire, but at what cost? If he really values these things, doesn't he value everybody else's privacy?
At several points the writing is rather immature - Harry gives nicknames to senior security staff and oftentimes comes off like a petulant child tattle-tailing. The writing is ripe with jealousy and revenge at William and the whole concept of being the "spare" gets exhausted within the first 5 minutes of Harry trying to be the victim. I am sorry but I cannot sympathize with a man who has grown up in so much privilege and wealth that it never occurs to him that dressing up as n*zi might be a bad idea.

Overall, I am not really a royal family supporter or opposer - the Queen was mostly a patriotic symbol in Canada and I really like Kate Middleton's wedding dress. This book doesn't really change my opinion either way - of course the RF controls the media, they survive on public opinion. Unfortunately, this book feels like Harry just airing dirty laundry to garner public sympathy and I didn't really resonate with that message.

Content Warnings