Spare by Prince Harry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’m going to say that I loved Harry’s honesty and his laugh-out-loud humor here. He can be ironic and self-deprecating in a touching way, not what you’d expect of this Prince. The press has a field day bashing Harry and Meghan in Spare, and it’s been hard to read Spare and form my own opinion with the unbelievable negativity coming from Sour Grapes who don’t seem to understand that we’re all reading this book because we want to know Harry’s side of the story. He admits his faults, but he doesn’t shy away from taking us to Afghanistan to understand his heroism.
We see how history has repeated itself in the way that Meghan is put through the the same stalking paparazzi ordeal as his mother. Okay, so that’s nothing new.
Harry’s adoration for his wife is heart-warming and a bit heart-breaking too. Meghan comes across as a flawless diamond, and how long she can sustain that perfection only time will tell. But as a victim of a particularly vicious brand of journalism, family betrayal, by her own father and by members of the Royal Family itself, the couples’ lives are shown as hardly enviable. Of course, watching the companion piece to this book the Netflix Harry and Meghan series, we are invited to ogle at the opulence of their new world in Montecito. How ironic that the book came out on the night that the whole town of Montecito had to be evacuated because of devastating rains and flooding.
I couldn’t help caring for Harry in a motherly way as I read on. My biggest concern is that Harry has bet everything on this marriage, and had everything to lose by leaving England. The sad consequence of having to sever ties with England and his royal duties, was surprisingly, we find out, not of his own choosing but by his family, who didn’t protect Meghan enough, Harry says, from the defaming, shaming and destroying of her character. Do we readers believe everything here? That’s a moot point, as I believe what’s to respect here is that Harry feels this way.
Harry knows, and Meghan knows too, that building a new life in America depends on his family brand name. There’s talk that Meghan has a book in the making, and I hope that she comes across as lovable and humble, and self-reflecting in her memoir as Harry does in Spare.
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