Spare by Prince Harry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’ve been struggling to figure out how to review this but then, I think, that’s what reviews are for. Working out how you think about something. Teasing out that reaction in words. Figuring out what these tiny marks on the page made you feel and how they made you feel it. And so the first thing that I will say in what follows is that this is a fragmentary review. Bitty. But then, I do think that this is where I am with this unusual, definitive, graceful book.
1. I read Spare very quickly, conscious of the still huge library reservation list behind me, and I genuinely enjoyed it. If you strip all of The Discourse back and take the noise away from this book, you’re left with something that’s very graceful and lyrical. J.R. Moehringer, the ghost author here, is to be complimented for their efforts. Spare has a very beautiful and often deeply poetic aesthetic and it really does add something very fascinating to the world of memoir
2. The first third is perhaps the strongest of the book. The final third strumbles* after itself and the book really does struggle to find a definitive ending. But then, I suspect, it was always going to feel like this. I felt a little bit as if Harry, even after telling all of this story, wanted to tell some more. But then I also felt like this book was also more than ready to end. But then the story had not. Time had rolled on, more of it was yet to be told. But then. But then.
3. I wish Harry and his family well. He has experienced remarkable and often horrific things and lived through situations that are almost impossible to understand. Vast swathes of this book are moving, poignant, and often deeply, deeply sad. And yet often not in the way that you might expect them to be.
4. There is a tendency throughout to focus on the very granular. I can understand why: it’s human. A thousand tiny cuts. Each and every one felt, each and every one remembered. And yet, the constant wonder of what this story – and in particular, that final third – might be like without that detail. Easier? Freer? I don’t know. I can’t remotely understand what it’s like to be at the eye of that storm. But then, but then.
5. This is a genuinely remarkable book. I don’t think we’ll read anything like it for quite some time.
* a typo, but I rather like it. Strumble. A portmanteau of ‘crumble’ and ‘stumble’. Let’s let it stay there, at least for a while.
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Daisy May Johnson 
Your review encapsulates my impressions of this and the situation it describes even though I haven’t read it, and am unlikely to do so. The problem for bystanders like me is that it’s all too often drowned out by the noise of bigoted pundits adding to the rumble of the rumour mill.
This is something that I wrestled with quite a bit so I totally understand where you’re coming from. It’s very hard to detach this book from the noise and I’m not quite sure if I’ve fully yet even figured it out really. It’s such a complex thing!