Clara’s Verdict
Whatever you think of the man, whatever your view of the institution, this is not the book you were bracing for. I went into Spare expecting grievance. I found grief. There is a meaningful difference, and Prince Harry’s memoir – or rather, this audiobook, narrated by Harry himself over fifteen hours and thirty-seven minutes – lands with a force that the tabloid coverage entirely failed to convey. The Sunday Times named it Memoir of the Year for 2023. The Financial Times called it “the most insightful royal book in a generation.” Both are correct. Listening to Harry read his own words about his mother, about the years of panic attacks that no one around him acknowledged, about falling in love with Meghan and watching the institution he was born into fail her – it is an experience that sits with you.
I reviewed over two thousand audiobooks before this one. Few have made me reconsider a view I didn’t know I’d formed so firmly. The audiobook format – Harry’s voice, his own pauses, his own pace – is the version of this story that should be encountered first.
About the Audiobook
The image Harry returns to throughout the book – the image everyone returns to – is that of two young boys walking behind their mother’s coffin. He was twelve. Billions watched. Spare is, at its heart, the story of what happened next: to a boy who was told, in a thousand explicit and implicit ways, that grief was not something the institution permitted; that being the Spare meant being available to the Heir rather than to yourself; that love was possible but protection was not guaranteed.
Written with J.R. Moehringer – though the voice throughout is entirely Harry’s own – the book covers his Army service, his PTSD and the crippling panic attacks that accompanied it, his early romantic history, and then pivotally: his relationship with Meghan Markle, the decision to step back from royal duties, and the family ruptures that followed. It is candid about things that would usually remain private in this world. Some of that candour will unsettle readers; some of it is clearly necessary context the public never had access to. The New Yorker called it “compellingly artful.” I’d add: bravely assembled, with the structural precision of a memoir that knows exactly what it is trying to do.
At 15 hours and 37 minutes, the runtime sounds daunting but moves with the momentum of someone finally telling their own story without anyone else’s edits or interests to accommodate. Chapters about Diana are among the most affecting passages in recent British memoir. Chapters about the press are among the most damning.
The Narration
Harry reading his own memoir is, in retrospect, the only version that could work. His voice carries what no professional narrator could have manufactured: the specific texture of a person who has rehearsed this telling in his own head for years and is finally saying it aloud. He’s not a trained voice actor – there are moments where the reading is slightly uneven – but the authenticity far outweighs any technical roughness. The moments about his mother are almost unbearable in the best literary sense. The funnier passages – and there are some genuinely funny ones – land naturally, because he has the timing of someone recounting his actual life rather than performing a script. It feels like a confession rather than a performance.
What Readers Say
The 4.1 rating from 118 Audible listeners tells an honest story: this is a book that divides along pre-existing fault lines, as books about the monarchy tend to do. Those who came to it with sympathy left with more. Those who came sceptically found the writing “naively” done in places – the first chapter is specifically mentioned – but warmed to it as the memoir found its depth. One UK reviewer wrote that it “altered many of my thoughts about him and his wife in a good way.” Another described it as “so heartbreaking, devastatingly shocking and sad at times, but with so much humour – it’s really hilarious and funny in places.” Even reviews that began cautiously tend to end with something like: I’m glad I read it. That arc – reluctant reader persuaded – appears repeatedly across the response.
Who Should Listen?
Readers who enjoyed Finding Freedom or any of the better royal biographies of recent decades will find this essential – it is, quite simply, better sourced than any of them, by definition. But I’d also recommend it to readers who have no particular interest in the Royal Family and wonder whether it’s merely celebrity memoir dressed up as something more serious. It isn’t. The passages about grief, about therapy, about watching an institution prioritise its image over the human beings inside it – those are recognisably universal experiences. The audiobook format adds something the printed version cannot: Harry’s voice, the weight in his silences, the particular quality of a person speaking without a safety net.
Listen to Spare on Audible UK: Find it on Audible UK. Also available via Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
