We take a look at what is being said about this much hyped book….
The Guardian: “Spare is by turns compassion-inducing, frustrating, oddly compelling and absurd. Harry is myopic as he sits at the centre of his truth, simultaneously loathing and locked into the tropes of tabloid storytelling, the style of which his ghostwritten autobiography echoes.”
The Cut: “Countless movies, TV shows, and books have attempted to reconstruct the grinding interior of this family’s existence, but none of them has approached the sheer wackiness of this inside account. Royal life looks worse, but also so much weirder, than we could have known.”
BBC: “What’s missing from the book is any sense of awareness of any wider context of the rest of the world outside. It’s as if he has been blinded by the paparazzi flashlights. No one worries about paying gas bills in this book. He’s back and forth to Africa like he was going a few stops on the Northern Line.”
Evening Standard: “As a way to tell his own story, Spare is a triumph. But it shows its author often in an unflattering light: vain, status-obsessed, bitter and confused. It’s by turns elegantly written (the ghost writer J. R. Moehringer has done a very good job) and has sections that really ring true with Harry’s voice.”
Washington Post: “Like Harry, the book is good-natured, rancorous, humorous, self-righteous, self-deprecating, long-winded. And every so often, bewildering.”
New Yorker.com: “Above all, “Spare” is worth reading for its potential historical import, which is likely to resonate, if not to the crack of doom, then well into the reign of King Charles III, and even into that of his successor.”
Time.com: “Whatever you think of the content, there’s no denying Spare is unflinching, introspective, and well-written.”
Metro.co.uk: **** “In print, the prince seems to have found his stride with this somewhat sad tale of a tortured man, grappling with a grief that still hangs heavy in his heart. He has J. R. Moehringer’s skilful penmanship to thank for his eloquence, keeping the lengthy read tight as he threads Harry’s anecdotes together in a vignette-style narrative.“
i News: “In contrast, his utterings on antiracism and unconscious bias – both issues he cares about – sound like lessons crammed, but unabsorbed. The bits about a frozen penis, his first sexual encounter, drug-taking, the Nazi party costume and other wild stuff are, at once, tiresome and useful reminders of when the tabloids loved Harry, their Harry. Then he married out, found his voice and became “woke”.”
The FT: ” Of all Harry and Meghan’s output since they stepped down from royal duties in 2020 — the interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Spotify podcasts, the six-hour Netflix documentary — Spare is the most bearable and revelatory. In the hands of ghostwriter JR Moehringer, acclaimed for guiding Andre Agassi’s memoir Open, Harry’s story is told sensitively and at times movingly.”
The Telegraph: *** “The gossipy details are amusing, but at its heart this memoir is a desperately sad tale of a boy who never recovered from his mother’s loss.”
Express.co.uk: “But to the book, which is split roughly into three sections – Diana, the Army, and Meghan. And it is pacy and readable, breezing along at a fair lick until the gears crunch badly when he gets to the Meghan years. Mawkish, teenage and just a touch fingers down the throat.”
Spare is available to buy and download now.