“Everything was pulled tight as a snare drum, so expertly smoothed that you could easily spot the century’s worth of patched holes and tears.”

Perhaps nobody is surprised that the British and the American reviewers of Spare by Prince Harry see things differently.  For example, the New Yorker describes Harry’s mended bedding in Balmoral Castle as “a metaphor for the constricting, and quite possibly threadbare, fabric of the institution of monarchy” while the British Guardian says, “Harry is so petulant: a man who thinks nothing, even now, of complaining about the bedroom.” The American reviewer points to many Shakespearean references; the British describes Harry as a “myopic, self-obsessed, non-empathic kind of person.” I side with this side of the Atlantic. I enjoyed it immensely.

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. Spare. Random House, 2023, p.18