Spare by Prince Harry
“Someone should say – hold on stop—this person deserves their privacy. You are not allowed to go there. I go around the world dealing with running and hiding and I can’t take a walk in the park. I can’t go to the store. I have to hide in a room. You feel like you are in prison,” Michael Jackson said in an interview after Princess Diana’s death.
He spoke about how the paparazzi put a machine into his toilet to try to capture pictures of him and said that the paparazzi chase him on scooters. Jackson has had to intervene and tell his driver to slow down. He confessed that he has had to do that many times.
“I’m not a Jacko! I’m Jackson.”
“Wacko Jacko. Where’d that come from? Some English tabloid. I have a heart, and I have feelings. I feel that when you do that to me. It’s not nice. Don’t do it.”
Have things gotten better since 1997?
Let’s take a look at this past September 2022.
Blake Lively posts a picture of her pregnant self in a swimsuit on Instagram. “Here are photos of me pregnant in real life so the 11 guys waiting outside my home for a unicorn sighting will leave me alone. You freak me and my kids out.”
In Spare, Prince Harry points out a sincere problem with the press. To be clear, it is not the regular press that he has a problem with. It is the paparazzi.
As much as he hates the paparazzi, why isn’t he doing more? Why isn’t he pushing for more legal reform? How is it legal to wait outside someone’s doors for days? Why isn’t there more protection for children? Toilet Cams? Hacking phones and putting tracking devices on cars? Can’t we all agree that these activities should be illegal?
That is the powerful theme throughout this book.
However, I am extremely disappointed in the ghostwriter, JR Moehringer. The book is divided into 3 main sections: Harry’s childhood after Princess Diana died, Harry’s military service, and Meg.
The first two sections were very boring. Where was the tell-all part? Harry wrote about losing his innocence to an “older woman” in one paragraph. What was he feeling? Was this a relationship? The details were missing.
There is almost no dialogue in this book, and it is so high-level. It does not feel like I pulled up a chair next to Prince Harry and was experiencing his life.
There is an old saying that it is better for an author to show the audience something rather than to tell the audience. However, there was far, far too much telling. During one relationship, Harry broke up with his girlfriend. That was how he put it. No! I want dialogue, feelings. What was said? I want to be invested, and I want to feel your heartbreak and despair.
Spare reads like a news article with a few below-the-belt comments sprinkled in.
We don’t even make it to Chapter 1 before Harry writes about his brother: “his alarming baldness, more advanced than my own.” Harry, if you want people to have vulnerability and authenticity with you, they have to feel safe. These types of comments are out of bounds.
Some passages were very strange like when Harry decided to share with us his frozen junk. Um awkward turtle.
But that fault I squarely blame on Moehringer. He also ghostwrote Shoe Dog which is a memoir about the founder of Nike. Holy Smokes! That book was so good that I remember even years later exactly where I was when I was reading that book.
Spare is no Shoe Dog.
Then, an article came out recently. Prince Harry cut the juiciest bits out of the book. “There are some things that have happened, especially between me and my brother, and to some extent between me and my father, that I just don’t want the world to know. Because I don’t think they would ever forgive me.”
As for Prince Harry himself, I would recommend reading Michelle Obama’s book, “The Light We Carry”, specifically the last chapter, “Going High.” Trust me. Michelle Obama has had some very unfair and downright lies published about her in the media. What is her motto? “When they go low, we go high.”
Here is a passage from her book that I feel is appropriate here:
Are we still supposed to be going high?
Okay, what about now?
My answer is yes. Still yes. We need to keep trying to go high. We must commit and recommit ourselves to the idea. Operating with integrity matters. It will matter forever. It is a tool.
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