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A review by nashakhan
Spare by Prince Harry
4.0
I’m a little wary of giving this a four star rating, but having seen it through — via Audible — I think it’s earned the extra half for sheer audacity and gumption. And because I just want to stick it to his incredibly mean-spirited, ill-intending critics. Plus it’s actually much better than they and the British press made it out to be.
What I liked about this book was the authors’s raw honesty, vulnerability, and his ability to self-reflect and poke fun at himself. I’m guessing the British media understood his cheeky, self-deprecating, and at times dark humor and chose to use it against him. Which isn’t a fair or accurate take on the book.
It is, however, difficult to set aside the politics surrounding this ghost-written autobiography, and judge it without at least considering what it took to write this thing and the circus surrounding its very public birth.
There are parts I really loved and found quite poignant like the entire introduction, which places Harry in the gardens at odds w his father and brother, the consistent tie-ins to the loss of his mother and the palpable grief that consumes his adolescence and youth with a litany of poor choices, his relationships with his wife and grandparents, and the bittersweet end that bookends his growth from a young man trying to navigate his own independence to a husband and father who is comfortable with his life choices.
I will agree here that I too felt the frostbitten bit was entirely unnecessary — not just because it felt too intimate, and uncomfortable, but also pointless. Aside from detailing his discomfort, it did nothing to move his story forward or add nuance to his character. I’m curious to know why the writer chose to not just keep it but extrapolate on it in such gravid detail. It feeds right into tabloid fodder of what could’ve been a deeply telling story about the effect the loss of his mother had on his every choice throughout his trajectory.
All the other parts the media highlighted were much ado about nothing. In any autobiography, a certain level of exposure is expected. I’m surprised some of these reviews are still expounding on the merits of privacy when he articulates clearly what his wife and he wanted was acceptance, love, loyalty, and protection from the institution he represents and his own family. Either these reviewers didn’t actually read the book or continue to toe the company line.
I do think had he waited to write his story — maybe a few years after the dust settled and he had a wider lens of retrospect — it would’ve been a powerful read. It’s probably my greatest criticism — that he didn’t wait for hindsight and wisdom to guide and lead his story as an absconding alternative.
I think Spare — such a great title — is worth a read. It humanizes a man who’s been continually abused by a rabid press that hasn’t learned much after destroying and in part being responsible for the accident that killed his mother. I walked away from this liking him (and his wife) even more, and having an even lower opinion of the quite tawdry British royals (who really struck out w Meghan.)
What I liked about this book was the authors’s raw honesty, vulnerability, and his ability to self-reflect and poke fun at himself. I’m guessing the British media understood his cheeky, self-deprecating, and at times dark humor and chose to use it against him. Which isn’t a fair or accurate take on the book.
It is, however, difficult to set aside the politics surrounding this ghost-written autobiography, and judge it without at least considering what it took to write this thing and the circus surrounding its very public birth.
There are parts I really loved and found quite poignant like the entire introduction, which places Harry in the gardens at odds w his father and brother, the consistent tie-ins to the loss of his mother and the palpable grief that consumes his adolescence and youth with a litany of poor choices, his relationships with his wife and grandparents, and the bittersweet end that bookends his growth from a young man trying to navigate his own independence to a husband and father who is comfortable with his life choices.
I will agree here that I too felt the frostbitten bit was entirely unnecessary — not just because it felt too intimate, and uncomfortable, but also pointless. Aside from detailing his discomfort, it did nothing to move his story forward or add nuance to his character. I’m curious to know why the writer chose to not just keep it but extrapolate on it in such gravid detail. It feeds right into tabloid fodder of what could’ve been a deeply telling story about the effect the loss of his mother had on his every choice throughout his trajectory.
All the other parts the media highlighted were much ado about nothing. In any autobiography, a certain level of exposure is expected. I’m surprised some of these reviews are still expounding on the merits of privacy when he articulates clearly what his wife and he wanted was acceptance, love, loyalty, and protection from the institution he represents and his own family. Either these reviewers didn’t actually read the book or continue to toe the company line.
I do think had he waited to write his story — maybe a few years after the dust settled and he had a wider lens of retrospect — it would’ve been a powerful read. It’s probably my greatest criticism — that he didn’t wait for hindsight and wisdom to guide and lead his story as an absconding alternative.
I think Spare — such a great title — is worth a read. It humanizes a man who’s been continually abused by a rabid press that hasn’t learned much after destroying and in part being responsible for the accident that killed his mother. I walked away from this liking him (and his wife) even more, and having an even lower opinion of the quite tawdry British royals (who really struck out w Meghan.)