Once I heard Prince Harry’s book “Spare” was going to be released, I knew I was going to love it. Royals, drama, getting to hate on the evil stepmother? Just take my money! And I’m not the only one. “Spare” sold more than 3.2 million copies worldwide in the first week!
I and millions of readers quickly discovered how sadness and trauma became the theme of the book. I also didn’t realize why it was called “Spare” until the first few pages. It’s clear when Prince Harry says, “Whereas, I was the Spare” that he was the extra. He said, “I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy.”
The book, which feels incredibly well written, is actually ghost-written (written for someone else who is the named author) by J.R. Moehringer, though that doesn’t stop the book from having little touches of Prince Harry all around. For instance, the details of why he decided to write “Spare” when he traveled to Britain for his grandfather’s funeral in April 2021. There he had the “staggering” realization that neither his father nor his brother truly understood why he and his wife, Meghan Markle, had moved to California. “I have to tell them,” he thought. “And so: Pa? Willy? World? Here you go.”
“Spare” quickly dives into his mother Diana’s death, and while it’s not equally traumatizing for readers, it goes to show that not only does her death affect him but the aftermath of it does too. He was just 12 years old when he had to walk behind her casket, and then he was thrust towards the crowds outside Kensington Palace.
Harry said, “Hundreds and hundreds of hands were thrust continually into our faces, the fingers often wet. From what? I wondered. Tears, I realized. I disliked how those hands felt. More, I hated how they made me feel. Guilty. Why were all these people crying when I wasn’t – and hadn’t?”
What made me almost cry is how he very much believed his mother was alive. For years, he went through the constant battle of “She’s gone. No, she’s hiding. She’s dead. No, she’s playing dead.” It wasn’t until he looked at the photos of the scene of his mother’s death (the horrific ones were removed) and went through the same tunnel at the same speed, 65 mi/hr, that he realized she was chased to her death by paparazzi and could never survive with that external factor.
As I said before, I love the royal family and all the drama that comes with it. However, I will say I don’t like Camilla. It seems, though, that Prince Harry doesn’t either. He introduced her as the “Other Woman” whose presence William and himself sensed in his parent’s marriage. He recalled their first meeting as her seeming bored and them only having his father and horses in common.
Harry also said leaks to the press were frequent. For example, when the tabloids falsely report that Markle made Kate cry during the lead-up to her wedding with Harry (Markle told Oprah that Kate made her cry), Harry traces the story to William, who fed it to Charles and Camilla, who fed it to the press. No correction, he writes, will ever be forthcoming from any of them, “because it would embarrass the future queen. The monarchy always, at all costs, had to be protected.”
One of the saddest things about the book is the portrayal of the downfall of brotherhood. At the beginning of the book, Harry states, “All at once something shifted inside of me. I looked at Willy, really looked at him, maybe for the first time since we were boys. I took it all in: his familiar scowl, which had always been his default in dealings with me; his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own; his famous resemblance to Mummy, which was fading with time. With age. In some ways he was my mirror, in some ways he was my opposite. My beloved brother, my arch nemesis, how had that happened?”
After reading “Spare,” I have to say that Prince Harry comes off as deeply traumatized. There’s a sense of not belonging that continues until he meets Markle. He goes on to say, “And if they didn’t know why I’d left, maybe they just didn’t know me.” With all these revelations in the book, I don’t know if the royal family will want to continue to know him as it’s safe to say he burned a bridge.
Critics complain that Harry is a sell-out or a whiny baby, but fans argue it’s an opportunity for him to speak his truth. If you like memoirs, this will likely be an engaging read for you. If you like drama and the royal family, then this book is a must-read. I give it 4.5 Spartan Heads.