Quantcast

Spare by Prince Harry (audio)

Source: Purchased
Audible, 15+ hrs.
I am an Amazon Affiliate

Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, who narrates his own memoir, is one man’s struggle with his role in life (one he was born into), the death of his mother (which he avoided grieving for far too many years), and who loves his wife and his family (all of his family). How do you deal with the death of a mother, particularly in such a sensational and horrific way that Princess Diana died? How do you navigate a privileged life as a spare who isn’t exactly expected to carry the royal name into the future? How do you protect your family from a press that is allowed to run free and do as it pleases and is often fueled by petty family jealousies and informants?

No matter what you think about the royal family or how the press works, etc., it is clear that the horrific death of Princess Diana profoundly shaped Prince Harry and how he viewed the British press from the start. He was a young boy when he lost his mother, and reading about how the family reacted and did little to help him adjust and mourn is heartbreaking. The love his mother had for him and his brother also nurtured his love of family and the belief in family loyalty and protection, much to his detriment. He assumed many things about his own family and its priorities. There are many instances where he gives them the benefit of the doubt in how they treated him and his wife, but that benefit of the doubt was clearly misplaced time and time again.

The drawbacks for me were the unexamined privilege he has and didn’t acknowledge, and what seemed to me a glossing over of how the British press and its close relationship with the Royals helped him. Overall, Prince Harry was clearly adrift and in need of direction, which he found in the military despite the obstacles (including the Royal family and his brother). Does he have more self-examination to do? Yes, but don’t we all.

Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is a page-turner, and definitely an emotional read. It’s a sad look at a young man without enough support from his family. Family here is focused on preserving the monarchy and little else. The relationship between the brothers was not that solid to start with and it is clear that becoming the heir further fractured the relationship between Harry and his brother. If anything, right or wrong, this is a memoir of a broken family and a man who will protect his wife and children first.

RATING: Quatrain

About the Author:

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex is a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, environmentalist, and bestselling author. He resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his family and three dogs. His memoir, Spare, was published on January 10, 2023.

Mailbox Monday #716

Mailbox Monday has become a tradition in the blogging world, and many of us thank Marcia of The Printed Page for creating it.

It now has its own blog where book bloggers can link up their own mailbox posts and share which books they bought or which they received for review from publishers, authors, and more.

Emma, Martha, and I also will share our picks from everyone’s links in the new feature Books that Caught Our Eye. We hope you’ll join us.

Here’s what I received:

Spare by Prince Harry The Duke of Sussex from Audible.

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 Diana, Princess of Wales, was laid to rest, billions wondered what the princes must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

Grip by Yvette Neisser, which I purchased at her reading at DiVerse Gaithersburg.

Praise:
“From the horrors of the Holocaust to the grace of plié, from the pyramids of Egypt to her father’s passing, Yvette Neisser Moreno’s noble voice in Grip explores the ‘arc out of thinking’ between a dawn that ‘trembles with faint prayers’ and death like a ‘fluidity of grain.’ Neisser Moreno’s yearning for comprehension and her pristine sensitivity ‘grip’ the reader from the start. In her delicate poems she reminds us that strength rises from understanding and that poetry, at its core, is always a way to ‘untwist language from dreams.’ Enter the ‘stillness before snow,’ the compelling landscape of this extraordinary collection.”–Clifford Bernier, judge and author of The Silent Art

“’Some of us live at a slant’,” the poet Yvette Neisser Moreno writes in Grip and then proceeds to show us how, in language soothing and startling, both. The poems are ‘a slow plea/for the beating of human hearts,’ whether among the conflicts and struggles of the Middle East or within a single family or a single one of us wrestling with her grief. These are poems of great humanity. Read them for their crystalline truths and for the joy they find in our difficult hearts.”–Sarah Browning, director of Split This Rock and author of Whiskey in the Garden of Eden

“Yvette Neisser Moreno’s poems shimmer in that mysterious space between rib and spine, body and sky, farewell and departure. This is where she seeks equilibrium. “–Barbara Goldberg

“With quiet precision and evocative narratives that take us from lovely Hussein smoking a sheesha after losing his sight to an inner landscape of the Great Pyramid and a passage into eternity with its endless, circling shades of deeper blue, Yvette Neisser Moreno takes us on a journey where the senses are the compass for being present in the world. This fine first book of poems takes us along the uncharted spaces between the body and the experience of the world, calling us into its winding, into the warmth and joy of its eloquent movements. The poet draws us up close and releases us into our own bodies, our own mindful breath.”–Naomi Ayala

What did you receive?