It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother's coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on. For Harry, this is that story at last. Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother's death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight. At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn't find true love. Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple's cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . . For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.
Right from the start, Spare captured my attention, and maybe not with what you'd think. While I do love stories of royalty and the like, what really kept me engaged from the get-go was the narrative structure. I am immediately captivated by short, fragmented chapters that are reflective of how memory actually works. I was intrigued by the voice of the narrative, how casual and authoritative it was. I am a fan of three-part books, and especially ones with headers inspired by famous poems, and on and on. I felt that there was a great care to the storytelling nature of this memoir, and it does read more narrative than memoir, blending the lines almost seamlessly, you forget that you're reading about real people.
But, as Prince Harry reminds us time and time again, he and his family are real people, and real people who don't deserve the scrutiny and cruelty of the press. In fact, working to dehumanize them is fatal, the first step in allowing cruelty to prevail. What a fascinating, compelling argument, and what a shame that those words don't appear until near the end. When I first opened the book, I knew without a doubt that there would be an argument laced through the narrative. What I didn't expect was for it to take a while to percolate, for a while until that argument could be highlighted as one cohesive sentence. What I wouldn't give for it to have appeared sooner, and for the rest of the memoir to be structured around proving that point more tightly. While I enjoyed reading about the ins-and-outs of royal life and Prince Harry's childhood, I felt that this book had an agenda, and trying to bury the lede did no service to the overall narrative.
As with all memoirs, I'm always left wondering more about what wasn't shared than what was. In the case of Spare, I recognize that this is wholly Prince Harry's experience of the press and of being a member of the royal family, and that my desire for more information cannot be solved or answered by just this one account. Despite that, I believe it's still important to recognize and hope that we gain more insight from other royals in the future. I was so curious, most of all, for Kate's perspective. Obviously, Prince Harry can't share that, but I think it speaks to the memoir's argument as well—there is just so much that we can't know, or may never know, about leading a royal life. If that's the case, then I believe we also have to take Prince Harry's account with a grain of salt. Without more insight from other angles, we'll never know a true, objective story. We might never know that, and we might just have to be okay with that.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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