Bookclub for Spare

[BornBlonde]

I know there are loads of threads, but thought it may be useful to set up a bookclub thread ahead of the release date fir those interested. I've ordered the audiobook as struggling to find time to read at the moment but love I can listen to an Audiobook while cooking etc

@AnImaginaryCat that just have been alarming! Harry booming out at you, talking about his oscillating penis 😂🤮

His todger was frostbitten. Bleeeeurgh!!!!

Why not read the book before commenting, especially as you claim to have ordered it? Stop relying on salacious headlines when it is in your hands. And why spread a story which you admit could be a malicious lie?

If all this is true , then it's one fucked up family. I can't imagine doing this to mine . Why are they all doing things that need to be covered up?

At least Elizabeth Arden have a new marketing strategy now.
Minimises fine line and wrinkles and sorts out frost bitten todgers.

I’m just catching up with the thread. I’m at the Afghanistan section.

It’s a better read than I expected, shows him as real and human, flawed, self-aware. I hope the voice we hear is his voice and not the ghost-writer’s.

There were sections I thought were a bit cringy (looking at the stars etc), but then everything has been thought and said before, and it is quite brave to open your heart like this about thoughts in your head.

Thanks @vera99 for linking to Diana’s brother eulogy. It was just as powerful now as it was then.

Also, imagine growing up in a family where you can’t/don’t hug each other. Not your Dad, not your Granny. It must mess you up a bit.

There is a scurrilous US magazine called National Enquirer that likes to publish tittle tattle. I bought a copy in the 80s when a group of us went on a holiday to Florida and it had lurid details about Charles and Diana before it all came out. My group scoffed and snorted as I read out revelation after revelation. Turned out it was all bang on the money ! For those that want to go there google Camilla Booze Enquirer it seems to add flesh to what Harry is asserting here. Private Eye returns to the same subject often well before Harry with something similar.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Enquirer

I'm just catching up with the thread. I’m at the Afghanistan section

Yes I'm also at the Afganistan section - reading slowly.

Going back a bit, but disagree about this bit

"Charles seems like a very sweet, loving man but he’s slightly useless and doesn’t live in the real world (like asking Harry to write letters rather than call home when he was in the army) and has his own emotional problems (he can’t praise his son face to face, he writes it in a letter and leaves it on his bed)"

When you have myriad appointments and never know where you are, phone calls can be really hard. DS rings and effectively pins me to the sofa for his chats. It's lovely to catch up, but it can be hard to focus on a call if it's the wrong time.
Leaving loving little messages for DC to find in their lunchbox, or on their bed, is a classic recommendation. It's really sweet.

The descriptions of family life when they are in private and on holiday sound really free and relaxed, close and loving! I'm only reading third hand though..l

I’m almost halfway - he’s just done the Apache training and is getting his wings. This is a good read, so much better than the DM hysteria led me believe. I hope my kids will give it a go as well.

The love between H and Chelsy, they were so young. Quite emotional reading this.

I really enjoying it. Also at Apache training bit.

Loved the Apache training for him, considered how he was made to believe he was so thick. He got his wings, and how.

If thats all you know I can understand it's a bit grim but you might only really feel it when you are amongst people who are more affectionate.

In Harry's case he was given a lot of affection, sincere and openly by his Mother so clearly used to it - and then to have that cut of so abruptly at the age of 12. And it doesn't sound like Charles or his grandmothers stepped in to fill that void.

Agree! I'm there now

The account of his Sandhurst training was fascinating. You have to be an exceptional person to get through that, I admire anyone that does.

I also felt so sorry for him when he said his dad would often leave letters on his pillow saying how proud of him he was, but couldn’t say it to his face. Prince Charles was truly fucked up by his own weird childhood.

@LadyWithLapdog
"Also, imagine growing up in a family where you can’t/don’t hug each other. Not your Dad, not your Granny. It must mess you up a bit."
My mother never hugged my brother or me. Yet we had a very close relationship. Of course, my Dad hugged us, just as Harry must have been hugged by Diana.
I didn't have any grandparents.

I was never hugged.

I get this. You ache for a hug.

There are pictures of Charles hugging Harry when he was little

Oh @Roussette I am sorry. That’s heartbreaking. 💐

Me neither Rousette. I made a point of giving my children lots and lots, the youngest thinks I'm a bit mad. 😊

Thanks @Blossomtoes

I have a story I could tell here but it's too painful but I do get what it's like not to get hugged, ever.

Maybe that is why I sympathise, who knows! We all bring something to this from our past experiences, don't we?

Mine too! They are in their thirties and they indulge me!

We aren't a huggy family. We don't do the 'love you' thing. I never felt anything but loved and supported. I knew my parents had my back my whole life. My Dad was my biggest cheerleader. Lucky, lucky me.

A review from the Atlantic here which I found thought-provoking.

Hope the link works

apple.news/AUeDq9p6-TEej5f7bYZ4Itg