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A review by travsbookshelf
Spare by Prince Harry
4.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. By that, I mean, I never read memoirs (except one many years ago that captured my attention and it was good). Second, I do not follow the Royal Family. Of course I hear things and see the occasional news clip or video about some of the happenings there but I never really invest in their stories. However, this book seemed to be skyrocketing in the book charts so I decided to pick it up out of sheer curiosity.
Another thing I don’t do reading-wise is I never use audiobooks. I have nothing against them, I certainly see the convenience for people on the run, don’t have time to sit and read a book, etc. I just personally don’t want a book read to me, plus my focus gets very skewed when trying to listen to a story but I get easily distracted. But I broke down and bought the audiobook of this as it is narrated by Prince Harry himself, which I thought would be very interesting.
And it paid off. I sat and read the book and listened to the prince narrate at the same time because I figured that’d be “safer” for me to not get too distracted considering it was a memoir, so it was fairly easy to stay focused and invested since hearing Harry discuss his life story would be helpful hearing his feelings through his voice.
I won’t get into the details of the book because I don’t want to spoil anything but here’s where the mixed feelings come in. Style-wise this book is excellently written. It’s divided into 3 clear, distinct parts and the chapters within each part are carefully laid out and sectioned flawlessly. Story-wise….I don’t know. A large part of this young man’s life, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. But there are other parts where it seems he comes off as….I don’t know, I honestly don’t know how to feel about. I found myself looking up videos of the backlash this book is getting and I feel the press is cherry picking certain things from the book when there is so much more to consider. Again, not to spoil, but I found that there were 2 major motives that Prince Harry had (and, honestly, rightfully so) that spurred him to react in certain ways that he did at times. And that is something that I never expected from a memoir of all things: a lingering afterthought, like what could have been, how could this be another way, while that never had to be, etc…
All in all, I’m giving this book 4 stars. Usually I’d give a memoir at best 3 stars because they are usually just diary-esque accounts of someone’s life. It’s not perfect, of course, and even though the style is very good, it also gave me that afterthought I mentioned above. That is, I didn’t just read someone’s life story and just put it down. It actually made me think about it afterward. Best I can explain it. But my advice: pick it up, read it. It’s actually very good.
Another thing I don’t do reading-wise is I never use audiobooks. I have nothing against them, I certainly see the convenience for people on the run, don’t have time to sit and read a book, etc. I just personally don’t want a book read to me, plus my focus gets very skewed when trying to listen to a story but I get easily distracted. But I broke down and bought the audiobook of this as it is narrated by Prince Harry himself, which I thought would be very interesting.
And it paid off. I sat and read the book and listened to the prince narrate at the same time because I figured that’d be “safer” for me to not get too distracted considering it was a memoir, so it was fairly easy to stay focused and invested since hearing Harry discuss his life story would be helpful hearing his feelings through his voice.
I won’t get into the details of the book because I don’t want to spoil anything but here’s where the mixed feelings come in. Style-wise this book is excellently written. It’s divided into 3 clear, distinct parts and the chapters within each part are carefully laid out and sectioned flawlessly. Story-wise….I don’t know. A large part of this young man’s life, I felt a lot of sympathy for him. But there are other parts where it seems he comes off as….I don’t know, I honestly don’t know how to feel about. I found myself looking up videos of the backlash this book is getting and I feel the press is cherry picking certain things from the book when there is so much more to consider. Again, not to spoil, but I found that there were 2 major motives that Prince Harry had (and, honestly, rightfully so) that spurred him to react in certain ways that he did at times. And that is something that I never expected from a memoir of all things: a lingering afterthought, like what could have been, how could this be another way, while that never had to be, etc…
All in all, I’m giving this book 4 stars. Usually I’d give a memoir at best 3 stars because they are usually just diary-esque accounts of someone’s life. It’s not perfect, of course, and even though the style is very good, it also gave me that afterthought I mentioned above. That is, I didn’t just read someone’s life story and just put it down. It actually made me think about it afterward. Best I can explain it. But my advice: pick it up, read it. It’s actually very good.