I wish everyone would read this - not just quote from it.

Spare - My review (also on Amazon and GoodReads)

I wish people would read it all, with an open mind, rather than merely the sensationalised sound bites and misinterpretations. Unfortunately we live in an era when people are conditioned to want and believe the sound bites and the skewed interpretations of them, the more sensational the better.

Harry, the supposed ‘thicko’, has shown himself in recent years to be an articulate, thoughtful man. It is the same with this book. OK, this is ghost-written, but it’s still done from his own account, put together using his own thoughts and words.

He tells it like it is, as he sees it and has experienced it. That’s as close to honesty as any of us can get. (I recently wrote a memoir of my own, so I appreciate the difficulties.) Having lately read ‘Courtiers’ by Valentine Low (an author who is said to hold no great brief for Harry and Meghan) I can readily believe the many machinations that go on behind the scenes by staffers and bureaucrats from various royal households scheming to sway the press favourably towards their own principals, even at the cost of blatant untruths. Harry hasn't told the half of it!

Even so, I was shocked to learn how many of the things I’ve read over the years have been outright lies - even things not especially nasty, but nevertheless completely made up so as to have and sell a story.

By now - indeed, from early on - Harry and Meghan can’t win; for most of the press and social media, whatever they do or say, it’s wrong. That’s already the case with this book too. The outrage is already being confected. The book is selling well - but an even larger public, I think, is put off reading it at all because of what they have already been fed about this couple, and/or because of believing the spin put on the bits taken out of context. To be fair, the book does include allegations which appear to be justly deserved, and which have only been made now as a very last resort.

It may be true, as some people are saying, that it was naive of him to write it. But keeping silent over the years didn’t do any good either. I understand his wish to get his truth out there: his own knowledge, feelings and recollections. I even applaud him for it.

I only hope that, whatever people’s reactions, this couple may be able to find both the peace they crave for themselves and their children, and the work they want to do. In fact, they seem to be making some headway in both respects, despite serious challenges, since their move away from Britain. I think the troubles that befell them since their relationship began are no fault of their own, and they have earned the right to thrive.

Note: I listened to it as an audio book (read by Harry) simultaneously with reading the ebook.