REVIEW: SPARE, BY PRINCE HARRY

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.

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From the very first pages of Spare, we are drawn into the thoughts and feelings of a young man growing up in the royal life. Not only does he share the early moments of his life, the feelings of having lost his mum in that horrific tunnel in Paris, we follow him to the years in the army. Then we finally see what his life looked like after he met Meghan.

What would his journey reveal about how the royal life had turned him into a lost soul who had to leave that institution to find himself completely?

Would his royal family turn on him? Would his own choices set him completely adrift from them?

His story caught me up into how that world would change for him, and how his feelings about the media, the rules of the Crown, and his own choices would completely turn him into someone who only wants to carve out his own life with his family and the woman he loves. And how those choices would alienate him from the Crown and his royal family. Could he accept that new world? Or would he feel even more alone? A 5 star read.

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