Spare

If I could sum up this memoir in two words, it would be “defensively self-aggrandizing.” Also: Boring! And: WAY TOO LONG. I’ve never followed the British royals, but I was forced to read this book for my book club. I went in expecting to feel a ton of empathy for Harry: I, too, would probably crumble under the intense scrutiny of that kind of public life. His decision to give it up and leave England always made sense to me. And yet.

Harry starts out describing his childhood and, ultimately, the tragic and traumatic death of his mother. I enjoy “difficult childhood” memoirs, but they usually fall into two categories: (1) darkly funny, like Augusten Burroughs (“Running with Scissors”) and Jeanette Walls (“The Glass Castle”) or (2) triumphant and inspirational (“Educated” by Tara Westover). That’s because unless there’s some narrative arc, it’s just complaining. That’s where “Spare” landed for me — complaining upon complaining upon complaining.

Prince Harry writes as if he expects the public to hang on his every word, even if it’s boring, and they have. As a result, he never learned how to make himself entertaining or interesting in order to keep people from excusing themselves to go talk to someone else. His stories about doing mushrooms, drinking heavily, and the usual college-kid-type antics were mildly amusing when I was 20 years old and living through them, not so much as an adult reading someone’s memoir.

Ultimately, what bothered me the most was his non-stop self-aggrandizement. Even his low moments are either something he excuses or blames on someone else. The military portions are particularly galling — he insists on going into military service despite the fact that it would endanger everyone around him, because he’s such a high-value target. When his base gets attacked for that reason, he blames the press for leaking his location, rather than himself for being there.

That gets at the worst part of the book — the way in which he blames every negative aspect of his life on someone or something else, usually the tabloids or his mean family members.

The one positive thing I’ll say is that his stories of Meghan Markle make her seem as genuinely charming and lovely as her public image would suggest. But after reading, now I’m not quite sure what she sees in Prince Harry!

I get the sense that this book was written as a response to what he believes are the “lies” that have been told about him, by the press and his family. But as an American who was never really aware of those “lies,” it’s like hearing one half of a weirdly heated phone conversation. Ultimately, I was left wondering why this young man who was born into a life of a spectacular wealth and privilege didn’t just tell all this stuff to his therapist, instead of writing a book.