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A review by elissapoletti
Spare by Prince Harry
sad
medium-paced
2.5
It’s taken me almost a whole year to get through this one, I can’t exactly blame poor old Harry for that, I did read this in Audible form and my track record with getting through them isn’t great, it wasn’t for the lack of drama that slowed my listening down, that’s for sure.
When I say “poor old Harry”, it’s because that’s the way I feel Prince Harry likes to portray himself in this memoir. The way it reads, his goal is to victimise himself and Meghan, not to mention the down right shocking revelations he makes about his family, deeply personal things to the Royal family he brings up, that as a reader, makes me feel more embarrassed for him, than anger towards the Royal family. The book has a very melodramatic prose, I’m not sure who the ghost writer was, but I don’t think they did Harry any favours, in an effort to sound poetic and accomplished, it comes off like reading amateur YA fiction. This was something else I questioned whilst reading, how much of this was fact? How much fiction? And I couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy in it all, especially when he speaks of Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s butler, “Mummy’s former butler had penned a tell all, which actually told nothing. Was merely one man’s self justifying, self centring version of events. My mother once called this butler a dear friend, trusted him, implicitly. We did too. Now this. He was milking her disappearance for money, it made my blood boil.”, I can’t help but feel that Harry is doing the same thing here, to his mother’s memory and his family.
I can’t say that I am surprised by the content of this book, considering the several docos and interviews they have produced in the last few years, this really wasn’t any different. If Harry’s intention with this book was to gain some sympathy, he may well have done that, but possibly not the same sympathy he desired.
When I say “poor old Harry”, it’s because that’s the way I feel Prince Harry likes to portray himself in this memoir. The way it reads, his goal is to victimise himself and Meghan, not to mention the down right shocking revelations he makes about his family, deeply personal things to the Royal family he brings up, that as a reader, makes me feel more embarrassed for him, than anger towards the Royal family. The book has a very melodramatic prose, I’m not sure who the ghost writer was, but I don’t think they did Harry any favours, in an effort to sound poetic and accomplished, it comes off like reading amateur YA fiction. This was something else I questioned whilst reading, how much of this was fact? How much fiction? And I couldn’t help but see the hypocrisy in it all, especially when he speaks of Paul Burrell, Princess Diana’s butler, “Mummy’s former butler had penned a tell all, which actually told nothing. Was merely one man’s self justifying, self centring version of events. My mother once called this butler a dear friend, trusted him, implicitly. We did too. Now this. He was milking her disappearance for money, it made my blood boil.”, I can’t help but feel that Harry is doing the same thing here, to his mother’s memory and his family.
I can’t say that I am surprised by the content of this book, considering the several docos and interviews they have produced in the last few years, this really wasn’t any different. If Harry’s intention with this book was to gain some sympathy, he may well have done that, but possibly not the same sympathy he desired.