Hello! Trying something new here today. I will be live-blogging Prince Harry’s conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté about the duke’s best-selling memoir, Spare. The talk is set to begin shortly (Saturday, March 4 at 9am PT / 12pm ET). Click on the button below to go to the post on my Substack page. 

Click to read the live blog

• If you want to follow along in real time: I’ll update the p…

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I am closing out my Spare coverage today with one final episode of audio thoughts on Prince Harry’s memoir. This podcast answers your questions — thank you to everyone who took the time to write in! As I read through your queries, I felt strongly that this candid, conversational format was the bes…

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As I reached the end of Spare, I grew anxious. Reading Harry’s recollections of his 2018 wedding to Meghan, I couldn’t help but notice only a sliver of pages remained. There is so much ground still to cover, I thought. How will he fit it all in?

With ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer, Harry crammed four turbulent years into about 70 pages, a sprint from the Sussexes’ honeymoon through the Queen’s death last fall. The reflections and retellings suddenly took on a rushed and raw feeling, markedly different from rest of the book. This is wholly unsurprising; there hasn’t been the time or the space to process what just happened in the same way as something that occurred two decades ago. Still, it made for an overwhelming end to an intense memoir. As I closed the book, my heart felt both full and heavy for Harry, for what he experienced and how he shared it.

For these reasons and more, it took me a minute to compose my thoughts on the second half of Spare. I’ve found a bit of space from the material to be really helpful (here to normalize processing time!). Below you’ll find takeaways on moments and themes in Parts 2 and 3, which came quite quickly. I needed more time for the “but mostly” takeaway at the bottom of this email. You’ll see it turned into a bit of an essay because — like Spare — it’s complicated. And finally, I’ve collected links to other Spare pieces I found interesting.

PS: In case you missed it, here are my thoughts on the first half of Spare.

Looking for more Spare thoughts?

For a deeper dive, check out:

• 🎧 Audio Thoughts — A Spare Companion Podcast. This was such a fun experiment, reacting and reflecting to what Harry shared as I made my way through Spare. I discuss Part 1 in Episode 1 and Episode 2, Part 2 in Episode 3, Episode 4 and Episode 5, and Part 3 in Episode 6 and Episode 7. (You can add the feed to your favorite podcast app! Instructions on how to do that are here.) Still to come: One more episode answering your questions. Stay tuned!

• 🧵 SMT Discussion Threads. My favorite corner of the Internet right now, with the most insightful and constructive discourse around the book that I’ve seen! There is one for each section of Spare: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

The companion podcast and comment threads are available to paid subscribers. If you haven’t already, please consider upgrading for $5 a month — your support makes my work possible. If you cannot afford a paid subscription, please sign up for a free one first and then send me a note: Hello@SoManyThoughts.com. 

PS: It would mean so much if you would forward this email to a Spare-reading friend!

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So Many Thoughts on the Second Half of Spare

My take on Part 2 (beginning at Chapter 65) through the epilogue. Lots of spoilers ahead!

#TeamReadtheBook is the only way

Preaching to the choir here, obviously! But reading Spare in its entirety paints a much different portrait than anything leaked by the press ahead of its release. I was particularly appalled by the coverage of the number of people Harry said he killed in Afghanistan, which he shares in the second half of Part 2. This so-called reporting felt egregious to me — and Harry, too. “They had the whole section, they ripped it away and just said, ‘Here it is. He’s boasting on this,’” Harry said on The Colbert Show. “My words are not dangerous, but the spin of my words are very dangerous.”

When I reached his account of his second tour of Afghanistan, it became quite clear that “the number” — as the press reported — wasn’t just a number. It was part of a much broader reflection on the complexities of war and his experiences in combat. I learned so much in the details that Harry disclosed, including that footage from the Apache helicopter cameras is reviewed after every mission. “Everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped,” Harry writes. “I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number. Among the many things I learned in the Army, accountability was near the top of that list.” AND THEN HE SHARES THE NUMBER. It all hits so differently when you read the book, the whole book.

Time to rethink the Court Circular

The way my eyes widened at Harry’s commentary on the annual record of official royal engagements! There’s a rush at the end of each year to tally up the workload for each member of the royal family as recorded in the Court Circular. I’ll be honest: This focus on quantity has always turned me off. It has never felt apples-to-apples, by my estimation, as one Will and Kate event gets loads more attention than a series of Anne engagements.

I was fascinated by Harry’s description that the tallies become a “circular firing squad” amongst the Windsors. But what was even more revealing was how the engagements are distributed. As Harry tells it, the public-facing work that he and Will could do was managed by Charles. “Pa was the sole decider. It was he alone who controlled our funds; we could only do what we could do with whatever resources and budget we got from him,” Harry writes. “To be publicly flogged for how much Pa permitted us to do—that felt grossly unfair, rigged.” I mean, yes! How frustrating would that be? And there’s more: Charles would limit his sons’ public appearances so as not to lose too much of the spotlight. Which…wow.

A royal Maxxinista (and other brilliant storytelling moves)

The writer in me particularly appreciated the storytelling in the last stretch of Part 2, when Harry is sorting out life after leaving the army. Ghost writer J.R. Moehringer did a phenomenal job (throughout Spare but particularly in this section) of pivoting from the intensity of war with unexpected aspects of his royal life. The details were divine, racing through the aisles of a grocery story looking for avocado, crisps, and salmon fillets (“fill-ettes,” as he said in the audiobook). Or how he sprinted through the sale racks just before closing at T.K. Maxx!

Then Spare layers in Harry’s hyper awareness of his age and the passing time, wanting desperately to meet someone, and you’ve got yourself the start of an epic rom-com. A moment of gratitude for reversing the tired gender roles! So often women are the ones portrayed as fixated on an imaginary clock, feeling pressure to fall in love and start a family. And here is a man (a prince, no less) articulating all of that and more. 

Another well-crafted plot point was around Harry’s obsession with Friends: “I decided I was a Chandler,” he writes. Then — would you believe it?! — he ends up at Courteney Cox’s house. Would that party have been remarkable based solely on the <checks notes> “huge box of black diamond mushroom chocolates” detail? Yes, of course. Was it somehow sweeter knowing Harry had spent countless hours on the couch watching the television show of the woman whose fridge he was now raiding? You know it.

A not-so-subtle shoutout to Americans

Harry’s love of life across the pond got a big ol’ two thumbs up from this American! His descriptions were brilliant (again, h/t Moehringer). I chuckled audibly at how he was drawn to the things about us that tend to turn-off some Brits. Americans are seen as “too loud, too rich, too happy,” he writes, as well as “too confident, too direct, too honest.” My favorite bit was how he said Americans “spit things out, like a sneeze.” Hell yeah (and welcome, Harry!).

What was Meghan thinking in those early days?

We know quite a bit of the Sussexes’ early courtship, thanks to the Netflix docu-series. Still, I found this stretch of Spare to be particularly delightful because it was filled with new details from Harry’s point of view. He fell so fast! And so hard! It was all quite adorable. All the while <cue SJP voice in SATC> I couldn’t help but wonder: What was Meghan thinking?

I mean, take a second to put yourself in her shoes. She FaceTimes him after their first meeting to find him…at home, getting high with a friend, watching cartoons? Or what did it feel like to get a photo of a hand-written letter texted from a friend because Harry’s phone fell in the lake? Dying for her take on the brown bean bag and the rest of his bachelor pad decor at Nott Cott! I have so many questions about the disconnect between the fantasy of DATING A PRINCE and the reality of learning about his actual life.

How strong the bond between H&M was, right from the start

I said in this in my audio thoughts but absolutely everyone should get a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer to document the early days of one’s relationship. The ways in which Harry talked about his attraction and connection to Meghan were so moving. “There was an energy about her, a wild joy and playfulness,” he writes. “Confident. Free. She believed life was one grand adventure, I could see that. What a privilege it would be, I thought, to join her on that journey.”

What’s more, the strength of their bond is abundantly clear. “I knew her straightaway, and she knew me. The true me,” Harry writes. “Might seem rash, I thought, might seem illogical, but it’s true: for the first time, in fact, I felt myself to be living in truth.”

And you know what? I love that for him, I really do. After hundreds of pages of reading about this man’s early adulthood, wandering lost and alone, desperately wanting more from his family, I’m so glad he found someone he loves with his whole heart, someone who loves him so deeply in return.

What Harry did — and did not do — to prep Meghan for meeting his family 

About that curtsy! The way Meghan greeted the Queen was the source of much debate after the Netflix docu-series. Harry, however, describes her curtsy as “flawless,” which is all I need to know. Meeting Will and Kate, too, was expected because of what they had already shared. (Although I admit I cackled at the “F--k off” uttered in disbelief in response to Meghan being on Suits. Who knew W+K watched Suits?!)

What felt particularly new to Spare was Meghan’s first meeting with Charles. Or rather, how Harry prepared Meghan to meet Charles. “Her hair was down because I suggested she wear it that way,” he writes. “Pa likes it when women wear their hair down. Granny, too. She often commented on Kate’s beautiful mane.” (Pretty sure I let out an audible WHAT? here.) Harry continued: “Meg was wearing little makeup, which I’d also suggested. Pa didn’t approve of women who wore a lot.” (Here my reaction was more of a side-eye groan.) I am a big advocate for dressing thoughtfully — that’s what SMT is all about! But what Harry is talking about here is not fashion, it’s appearance. If I’m being generous, this sort of “guidance” feels outdated AT BEST. 

(Also, an aside, but if Harry had the foresight to suggest hair and makeup styles to Meghan, perhaps he could have done more to prepare her for other aspects of royal life?)

M did not Google H. Accept that!

What Meghan knew and what she didn’t heading into her relationship with Harry is a tired debate at this point. I loved that Harry slipped some not-so-subtle proof that she did not Google him (although he Googled her!). All the questions she asked? Relatable! And the bit about the wondering who the Queen’s “assistant” was? Meghan asked about “that man holding her purse. That man who walked her to the door,” Harry recalls. (It was Andrew. And, yes, I cackled.)

Meghan almost wore the Spencer tiara

I don’t feel like people are talking about this enough! I was so surprised to learn that Meghan was planning to wear the Spencer family tiara for her wedding, aka Princess Diana’s signature piece. I just had the chance to see the tiara in London last summer; it’s STUNNING. What a moment that would have been for Meghan to wear it! It sounds like plans were close to final, given that the scallop edge of her veil was designed to mimic the design of the sparkler. I understand why Meghan eventually went with one from the Queen’s collection instead — there’s no way you turn down a tiara from Her Majesty — but I would have loved to see the Spencer tiara, too.

About those bridesmaids dresses and that baby brain comment

The tensions between Meghan and Kate were a big part of the pre-publication leaks. Reading through those moments I had a pit in my stomach. At first I wondered why he was going there. Were these his stories to tell? But given the effect these moments had on Meghan, and the relationship between the couples, I understand why he did. And, in the end, I feel like Harry gave them a pretty fair shake? Reading Harry’s side, I felt like I fully saw each woman’s intent as well as their hurt. Kate failed to read the room when it came to causing a fuss about the fit of the bridesmaids dresses, especially considering what Meghan was dealing with from her father. And then it seemed that Meghan misspoke when when commenting on Kate’s hormones and “baby brain” when Kate had just given birth.

The generational trauma happening here

The bridesmaids dress incident sounds like it was resolved quite quickly — but took a horrible turn when it was spun and leaked to the press. So how did that happen? Harry points a finger, albeit indirectly, at Charles and Camilla, who learned of the story when Will told them about it during the Sussexes wildly successful tour of Australia and New Zealand. Harry’s retelling of that trip broke my heart; it went so well that he got nervous, telling Meghan: “This is how everything started with my mother.” With the incorrect spin and the leak — and the refusal to correct it —the story opened the floodgates for negative press about Meghan. Gah! I can’t. History repeating itself.

Later, there’s a scene where William confronts Charles about the bad press he and Kate are receiving, and calls in Harry for support. They have it on good authority that a member of Charles’s staff is planting stories about them and they ask him to make it stop. Instead of Charles acknowledging the harm he is causing — much less agreeing to do something about it — he attempts to justify it. “Granny has her person,” Charles says, according to Harry, who names Angela Kelly. “Why can’t I have mine?” Good God! Make it stop! I could just sense the fear and anger and hurt with which everyone was operating here.

Harry goes to therapy!

HUZZAH. I was so thrilled to read this. I did not love that it came after he snapped at Meghan, and that, at her urging, he sought help. But he got there — and what a beautiful few chapters this was to read. I was so moved by the memories he was able to reclaim of his mother, jumping on her waterbed or eating grapefruit for breakfast. And the bit about her perfume? Tears! And tears for an entirely different reason when he wrote about her pleading with the paparazzi to leave them alone.

The bad always followed the good

The therapy descriptions really summed up a theme throughout Part 3 — anything good came was quickly followed by something bad. Take Harry’s recollections of exiting the church on his wedding day. First he sees the smiling faces of the guests…then catches a glimpse of the snipers, representing the threat level. Oof.

Or after the Sandringham Summit, you can feel Harry’s relief over William’s willingness to hear him out — then he finds out his brother’s office put out a statement without his knowledge. “My name attached by faceless others to words I’d never seen—let alone approved? I was stunned,” he writes.

Perspective on Will’s attack

The first thing to leak from Spare was Will’s attack on Harry in the spring of 2019. I want to be clear: No amount of context excuses or justifies violence. Will was absolutely in the wrong.

My first reaction, reading the report in the Guardian, was one of total shock: He did WHAT? That was a pre-Spare take, having bought into the decades-long media myth of their tight brotherly bond. Reading about the incident after several hundred pages detailing the very strained relationship between Harry and Will did provide some perspective. I felt what Harry said Meghan felt when he told her: Profound sadness that it had come to that.

BTS of stepping back

The chapters discussing Harry and Meghan’s departure felt like a really important addition to the historical record. So much has been written about it, with so much spin and speculation. Now we know Harry’s side of why they did this. It was particularly illuminating to me to read about how their time in Canada primed them for this. “Brief as it was, that taste of freedom had got us thinking,” Harry writes. “What if life could be like that…all the time?” And then come the detailed descriptions of how they composed their statement, holed up inside of Buckingham Palace, and what went down at the Sandringham Summit (the printer bit!). It feels cruel, in hindsight, to present him with five options when “all in” or “all out” were the only possible outcomes. And can I just say: How gloriously short-sighted this is on the part of the Windsors! Think of what would be possible, and what they could have avoided, if they would have been open to accommodating a middle ground.

The gravity of the Sussexes’ security being pulled

Reading Spare drives home the constant presence of Harry’s security and what it meant when he was stripped of that coverage. “I’d never been allowed to go anywhere without three armed bodyguards,” he writes. They even went with him to war the second time! (As an aside: I found myself thinking about his security at various points in the book. Did anyone else wonder what they were doing at Courteney Cox’s house…?)

So to strip him of it? As quickly as they did? Unconscionable. Add to that the cost he was quoted to provide security on his own — a staggering $6 million a year. When Harry and Meghan signed deals with Spotify and Netflix, my first thought was always: It’s expensive to live their life safely. The fear he felt! After what happened to his mother! After the hate directed at his family in the media and online! It’s sickening.

Harry delivers the delivery room

If you would’ve asked me what I thought Harry would share in Spare and what I thought he’d skip, I’d have guessed that intimate descriptions of his children’s birth would be in the latter camp. But no! Harry takes us there, and what moments those were. (Again, it really helps to have a skilled ghostwriter in your corner here.) As Archie enters the world, Harry thinks, “Wow, it really all begins with a struggle for freedom.”

A few years — and an ocean away — later with Lilibet, he describes dancing around the delivery room filled with “nothing but love and joy.” The book comes to a close with Meghan’s reflections on watching Harry help deliver their daughter. “That is a man,” she writes. “That is not a spare.” After decades of navigating life alone, through pain and peril, and of wanting his father and brother to be more “family” than “Firm,” Harry is building a life with someone who sees him as he wants to be seen. What happier ending could there be for him than that?

His farewell to the Queen

Although I wanted more on his relationship with his grandmother, I appreciate that — aside from a few lines here and there — Harry kept most of it private. I feel as though she would have wanted it that way.

As for what else he doesn’t share in Spare…

I finished Spare feeling a bit disappointed Harry didn’t say more on some complicated topics in the royal watching world. I thought he could have gone a bit further to acknowledge the privilege his life afforded (although I know he was speaking from a place of immense pain). I also hoped he would discuss race beyond the racism in the press. He shared such a powerful sentiment in the Netflix doc-series about being the father of mixed race children. So to not explore that, or what it meant that Meghan was the first biracial member of the family, felt like a missed opportunity.  

(In honor of the Spare companion podcast, I thought I would record this final essay. Press play to listen!)

But mostly…

My thoughts on Spare are, like the book, long and complicated. As I wrestled with my takeaway, I found comfort in reminding myself that two things, even competing things, can be true at once. So this is a “yes, and” situation for me.

First, YES: I understand — and I’m grateful for the chance to read — Harry’s side of Harry’s story. Along with dispelling a lifetime of myths and misconceptions, he offered a candid depiction of his pain, his anger, and his joy. I found Spare at turns revealing, shocking, enlightening, and maddening. And after reading it, I feel like I have a much better sense of who this man is, what he has been through, why he has made the choices he has, and what he wants from his life. He gave all of us — as well as the history books — an in-depth look at his struggles within his family and the Firm, as well as why he left.

AND I don’t think what Harry wanted was ever really possible. A hereditary monarchy is set up to reinforce the heir-spare dynamic, not dispel it. There was nobody within the institution to help the brothers, and particularly Harry, move through this inherent tension — let alone past it. Consider what Harry described when he tells Will about Meghan. “I confessed, for the umpteenth time, that this had long been my dream — to join them with an equal partner. To become a foursome,” he writes. “I’d said this to Willy so many times, and he’d always replied: It might not happen, Harold! And you’ve got to be OK with that.” 

This sentiment made me reflect on spares in recent history. Have any siblings been on equal footing before? Queen Elizabeth II’s father is a bit of an exception, seeing as how his brother, King Edward VIII, abdicated quite quickly, so Prince Albert jumped from “spare” to King George VI. But before all of that, Bertie, as he was known, treasured his lower-profile (and less public) existence. Elizabeth’s sister, Princess Margaret, had her struggles as spare well dramatized in The Crown; I haven’t seen anyone suggest that she was ever positioned as an “equal partner” to the eventual monarch. King Charles III’s brother, Prince Andrew, is technically the spare of this generation but I’d argue it’s actually Princess Anne who plays that role. And she has long been celebrated for her willingness to keep her head down and her diary of engagements full in support of the institution.

What exacerbated the situation enormously for Harry was the loss of his mother. Again, looking to recent history, it seems the parent who married into the royal family is often a crucial supporter of the child not directly in line to the throne. Margaret turned to the Queen Mother; Anne was famously close with Prince Philip. Diana’s death left an immeasurable void in Harry’s life, for so many reasons, including as someone who could help him navigate the difficult role of “spare.” (This is a bit of an aside, but it occurred to me that if Diana was alive today, living a life outside of the royal family, the outcome here might have been the same. Maybe Harry would have left no matter what?)

Perhaps most surprising to me, after 400-plus pages of Harry’s story, is how committed he remains to the idea of monarchy. There has been a lot of projecting (I’m guilty of this, too) around Harry and Meghan’s motives for leaving. Were they trying to blow the whole thing up? No, Harry makes it clear, they were not. “My emotions are complicated on this subject, naturally, but my bottom-line position isn’t,” he writes. “My problem has never been with the monarchy, nor the concept of monarchy. It’s been with the press and the sick relationship that’s evolved between it and the palace.”

Here again, I find myself saying “yes, and.” YES, I understand the media’s damaging role in his life and his family, causing disruption at best and deep pain at worst. The toxic tabloid spin culture and endless stream of anonymous leaks against members of the family should absolutely change — although, if I’m being honest, I don’t know that that’s even possible?

AND, let’s say it does change, would that solve the problem? There would still be a centuries-old institution, which derives power and privilege from its colonial past, to reckon with — and a system that makes life very difficult for the people within it. After everything he and his wife went through, I would’ve thought Harry would push back on that a bit? Instead, he writes towards the end of Spare:  “No one wants to hear a prince argue for the existence of a monarchy, any more than they want to hear a prince argue against it.” Except that’s exactly what I wanted to hear from Harry! Why support this system that has brought him such suffering?

Maybe that’s for a second book.

And now we wait. We wait to see what happens in the months before King Charles’s coronation in May. Will the family meet and attempt to reconcile? Will we see Harry and Meghan participate in the festivities at all? I would love to hear your predictions in the comments.

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More Spare takes to think about

I’ve moved from reading Prince Harry’s book to reading all the takes about it. SMT! Here are links to pieces and a podcast I found interesting (Please note I don’t agree with every aspect of every take! Aiming for a range here):

• On the lack of discussion around colonialism: Prince Harry is upset about the wrong thing (The Cut)

• On the implications for the monarchy: Inside the Prince Harry book blitz and what it means for the monarchy (On with Kara Swisher)

• Review: The weirdest book ever written by a royal (BBC)

• On writing a book about your family: Prince Harry and the value of silence (The New York Times | Opinion)

• Review: A ghostwriter’s verdict on this ‘seeping wound’ of a memoir (The Times of London)

• On a man talking about his feelings: Why Prince Harry is such a threat to a certain kind of man (CNN | Opinion)

• On Harry’s fight with the media: Prince Harry is right, and it’s not just a matter of royal gossip (The New York Times | Opinion)

I HAVE FINISHED SPARE. And — wow — what a sprint to the finish this was. The seventh episode of my companion podcast for Prince Harry’s new memoir covers Part 3, Chapter 49 through the epilogue, which spans the turbulent four years between Har…

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Let the Spare love story begin! This sixth episode of my companion podcast for Prince Harry’s new memoir gets into the first half of Part 3. Chapters 1 to 48 cover his meet-cute with Meghan through their royal wedding in May 2018.

Be forew…

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UPDATE: Sign ups for the Spare SMT Book Club meet-ups are now closed. Thank you to everyone who registered to host and attend!

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Here’s the fifth episode of my companion podcast for Prince Harry’s new memoir, Spare, covering Part 2, Chapters 65 to 87. This last stretch of the second portion spans early 2013 through Harry’s, um, trip at Courteney Cox’s h…

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Hello! WHAT A WEEK. Simultaneously listening to and reading Spare has made for quite the intense experience of Prince Harry’s new memoir. I’ll admit, the further I get, the more proud I am to be on #TeamReadtheBook. The context is everything.

I am about halfway through Spare and resisting the urge to binge it as quickly as I can. There is so much here! I want to take my time and digest it all.

Scroll down for so many thoughts on the first half of Spare, along with links to other pieces I am reading. But first, you’ll find a recap of my companion podcast, our discussion threads, and the upcoming SMT Book Club meet-ups (so excited!). These additional features are open to paid subscribers; thank you so much for your support — it makes my work possible.

If you haven’t already, please consider upgrading for $5 a month. If you can’t afford it, please make sure you sign up for free subscription first and then send me an email at Hello@SoManyThoughts.com.

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🎧 Audio Thoughts — A Spare Companion Podcast

Thank you for the incredible response to this experiment of mine, an in-real-time podcast. I hope it feels like we are reading Spare together! If you haven’t had a chance to tune in yet, give it a listen. Every couple dozen chapters, I pause to reflect on what Harry has shared. Here’s a quick recap:

• Episode 1 covers the prologue through Harry’s time at Ludgrove (Part 1, Chapters 1 to 15). I discuss the structure and tone of the book, the memories Harry shares from his mother’s funeral, and much more.

• Episode 2 tracks from Harry’s Eton years to his early days in the British Army (Part 1, Chapters 16 to 58). There was a lot to discuss in this section — from Harry’s deep disdain for the media to how his public reputation affected him.

• Episode 3 looks at the first half of Part 2, from Harry’s scrubbed deployment to Iraq to the end of his relationship with Chelsy Davy (Part 2, Chapters 1 to 39). In addition to some breathtaking writing about military life and combat, I had one of my biggest realizations about Harry and the book so far. Listen to the end of this episode to hear it!

• Episode 4 — new this weekend! — gets into, yes, all the todger talk (I’ve got a great theory for that), that night in Las Vegas, his second stint in Afghanistan, and the surprising view he had of Will and Kate’s wedding.

Note: If you want to listen the moment I release an episode, either add the feed to your favorite podcast app (instructions on how to do that are here) or books this page.

🧵 SMT Discussion Threads

You all have THOUGHTS and I love you for it! I’ve started comment threads on the first two parts of the book and the discussion so far has been fantastic.

• Part 1 is here, with discussion about how Harry's grief affected him for so long, how so many of Spare's headline grabbing revelations read differently in full context and the complicated dynamics of the royal family.

• Part 2 is here, and gets into how Harry feels about past romantic partners, the importance of marriage to the royals and how central war is to Harry's identity.

• Part 3 is coming soon!

📚 SMT Book Club Meet-Ups

Behind the scenes, I’ve been hard at work organizing a few dozen (!) SMT Book Club meet-ups. Thank you to everyone who has signed up to host either in-person or digital hangs. In the next few days, I’ll send out instructions for how paid subscribers can join a meet-up.

So Many Thoughts on the First Half of Spare

My take on the Prologue, Part 1 and Part 2 (through Chapter 64). Spoilers ahead!

#TeamReadtheBook is winning

The uneasiness I felt in the pre-publication leaks has morphed into validation. I knew the book — all 410 pages — would provide so much more context than any of the standalone, screaming headlines. From Harry’s discussion around the number of people he killed in Afghanistan, to why he wasn’t the best man at William’s wedding and his feelings towards Camilla, each of these very sensitive topics are treated with tremendous care. 

Also, a special shoutout to #TeamListentotheBook. The additional layer we’re getting as we hear him share his story is <chef’s kiss.> When he sings a few lines from Elton John at his mother’s anniversary concert in 2007? My whole heart!

This is Harry’s side of Harry’s story

I am keeping this refrain in mind with every chapter of Spare: This is Harry’s side of his story. The singular point of view of Spare is very much the point; Harry wants, and has every right, to tell his story. And I very much want to hear it! But I think it’s helpful to remember there are probably many other sides to what he is sharing — none of which take anything away from what Harry is sharing. It’s a “yes, and” situation in my mind. Yes, this is Harry’s truth. And, there is probably more to it.

Harry’s frank admission of how trauma impacted his memory is all the more reason to keep this in mind. “My memory is my memory,” he writes in Chapter 2. “There is just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past.” As a journalist, I was a little taken aback by that framing. As a reader, I appreciated how upfront he was. Harry did himself a tremendous favor there, giving wiggle room to the entire narrative. (Also, his fantastic ghostwriter, J.R. Moehringer, tweeted that line seemingly as a response to the critics calling out minor inaccuracies sprinkled throughout the book.)

Another thing that struck me — again, with my journalist hat on — is the way some of the material is attributed. A number of times Harry writes about something as it was “reported” in the press. Given his hatred of the media, and the lengths he goes to throughout Spare to discredit the press, his use of it was surprising to me. But I can also understand, given the circumstances, why he might want to call on the extensive coverage of his family to augment his own memories.

A single sentence in Part 1 made me particularly sad, a line in the scene describing his mother’s burial: “It was reported that Mummy’s hands were folded across her chest and between them was placed a photo of me and Willy.” Those first three words — “It was reported” — would suggest he doesn’t know for certain. It’s also the sort of thing that if Harry was still on speaking terms with his family he could have checked with someone.

The tremendous influence of his mother

Princess Diana has an outsize role in all of history, so it’s no surprise that she looms particularly large in her son’s life. Still — it’s hard to describe what it felt like to read his words, and listen to him read them. “Although my mother was a princess, named after a goddess, both those terms always felt weak, inadequate,” Harry writes. Then later: “She was light, pure and radiant light, and how can you really describe light?” Chills.

The ways in which Harry processed her death at age 12 — or didn’t, for a decade — are just gut wrenching. It’s one of many areas in which his willingness to share his feelings so openly took my breath away. I was twice as old as Harry was when I lost my own mother and under very different circumstances (she had been sick for years). I truly cannot fathom the position he was in at such a tender age. And yet, so much of what he wrote rang true to me, too, particularly the inability to accept the finality of your mother’s death. Every time he refers to her “disappearance” instead of her death stopped me in my tracks.

How much Spare shares — and leaves untouched

One of the biggest surprises of Spare is the choices Harry is constantly making of what to discuss in great detail (ie her funeral, burial), what to gloss over (ie his parents’ troubled relationship), and what to keep private entirely (ie so much of his childhood). 

No doubt this has to do with what Harry refers to as “The Wall,” both in the book and in an interview with the Telegraph’s Bryony Gordon, which she describes as “a mental block in his brain that divides his life before and after his mother died.” In that conversation, Harry makes it clear that although he shared a lot, there is also a lot — particularly about his brother and father — that didn’t make it in. “I just don’t want the world to know,” he told Gordon.

I wonder, too, if that’s why this first half of the book says so little about the Queen. She pops up, here and there, in quite glowing terms. His deep admiration and love for her is clear. I’m waiting to see if we get more in the second half, but I was expecting her to feature more prominently in the first.

His love for, and the grace he shows, his father

One person Harry does say a lot about is his father. Perhaps this should have been a given (ahem, given how things have gone in the family) but I was surprised at how Harry describes King Charles III. He shows “Pa,” as he calls him, such grace in the face of what seems like quite significant emotional shortcomings.

Harry writes with such gentleness that you almost miss some of what happened, like how Charles didn’t hug Harry (!) after breaking the news of Diana’s death. “He wasn’t great at showing emotions under normal circumstances,” Harry writes, “how could he be expected to show them in such a crisis?” One might expect that’s exactly the time a father should rise to the occasion, but the pass that Harry offers him at that moment speaks volumes to me about the love he has for his father.

With the benefit of decades of hindsight, Harry seems to even better understand his father’s limitations. He writes with tenderness about how Charles was bullied as a boy, says very little about his father’s role in his parents’ divorce, and acknowledges how he tried to step up to the parenting plate in the wake of Diana’s death. “He’d always given an air of being not quite ready for parenthood — the responsibilities, the patience, the time,” Harry writes. “Even he, though a proud man, would’ve admitted as much. But single parenthood? Pa was never made for that.” 

The solitary, sparse side of royal life

In Part 1, it hit home that this boy, with his dead mother and his emotionally unavailable father, was alone so much of the time. Processing his trauma while navigating adolescence? I cannot fathom a child going through that.

To be fair, he was on this path with his parents’ choice to enroll him in boarding school (as is customary for that class — he refers to his peers as “abandoned children”) but obviously his mother’s death exacerbated it immensely.  The “matrons” at Ludgrove School acted as surrogates in a way. Harry writes about how he “depends on their nightly tuck-ins, still treasured their morning greetings.”

As he reached adulthood, Harry still didn’t have so much as a home base. He stayed in his various father’s residences, from St. James’s Palace to Clarence House to Highgrove, remarking at one point in 2005 that he lived out of a suitcase. Fast forward another eight years, when Harry was 29, and he was still living with his father, eating take out over the sink (and watching Friends, calling himself “a Chandler.” What a detail!)

Do you remember how Meghan, in her interview with Oprah Winfrey, was intent on dispelling the myths of royal life? She said she felt like she was being judged on perception rather than reality. Spare underscores that in so many ways, doesn’t it? It rips up any preconceived notion of how we think prince might live — and replaces it with detailed description of what life was really like.

The lack of hugs :(

In his chat with Stephen Colbert, Harry said he is “hugger” now — what a relief! Because oh my word! Harry’s talk of the lack of hugs or other forms of affection were really something. Just when you think this family is relatable…they are not. “The older generation maintained a nearly zero-tolerance prohibition on all physical contact,” Harry writes. “No hugs, no kisses, no pats. Now and then, maybe a light touching of cheeks…on special occasions.” With the Queen, Harry has even stronger boundaries. While watching her at a concert in 2002, he resists the urge to hug her. “Out of the question,” he writes. “I never had done and couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which such an act might be sanctioned.”  Why am I so sad about this!

There is a lot at play here with this reserve. It’s the American-Brit divide, surely; there’s a sizable class element, too. But I think about the physical nature of parenthood, how my kids use me as a climbing gym, how they plead for hugs and cuddles, and I sort of can’t fathom any other way? It makes me appreciate even more how transformative Princess Diana’s warmth was and understand (though don’t agree with!) the way Meghan was received as overstepping with her greetings. 

The complicated, but relatable, relationship Harry has with his brother

The long-standing tension between Harry and his older brother, William, was a big part of the messy pre-publication leaks around Spare. Once the initial shock of it wore off — I’ll admit, I hadn’t realized “Willy” and “Harold” were nowhere near as close as the public and press presumed — and I had a chance to really read some of the passages, I felt tremendous sympathy for the two of them. 

My feelings are heavily influenced by my own upbringing (as a second daughter who was positively obsessed with her older sister) and my own kids (particularly my middle son, Oliver, who always wants to be around my oldest, Fitzgerald). Being a mother is humbling! Watching my own kids has given me a greater understanding of both what I wanted from my sister and why she wanted space. I really see both sides. After a few tension-filled teenage years, my sister and I are now as close as can be — I have to credit my mom here with helping us through. Harry and Will were on their own, and dealing with the unimaginable heir-spare dynamic, which would magnify all of this tremendously.

At this halfway point in Spare, the interactions Harry describes between him and his brother feel quite one-sided. Which comes as no surprise. As I said earlier, this is Harry’s side of Harry’s story. His relationship with his brother clearly has had a profound impact on him. But I do find myself remembering that William was dealing with the same traumatic life events, the same emotionally unavailable father, and the pressures of royal life — and I feel for him, too.

How willing Harry is to wade into competing emotions

The internet rewards hot takes and choosing sides, but often I feel the most accurate, authentic position is somewhere in the messy middle, complete with competing emotions. With Spare, Harry is doing a tremendous job painting a complicated portrait of his life, one in which he often felt a lot of things all at once. 

I read the chapter about Camilla and Charles’s wedding several times to absorb the way the pendulum of emotion swings from happy to sad and back again. Take this portion! So many feelings:  

“I did sneak several long peeks at the groom and the bride and each time I thought: Good for you. Though, also: Goodbye. I knew without question that this marriage would take Pa away from us. Not in any real sense, not in any deliberate or malicious way, but nevertheless — away. Willy and I would see less of Pa, I predicted, and that left me with mixed feelings. I didn’t relish losing a second parent, and I had complex feelings about gaining a step-parent who, I believed, had recently sacrificed me on her personal PR altar. But I saw Pa’s smile and it was hard to argue with that, and harder still to deny the cause: Camilla. I wanted so many things, but I was surprised to discover at their wedding that one of the things I wanted most, still, was for my father to be happy. In a funny way I even wanted Camilla to be happy. Maybe she’d be less dangerous if she was happy?” 

Harry has learned a lot, and still has work to do

Note: After sending this newsletter, a reader wrote to offer context around the slur Harry used and asked that I use trigger warning on any future mentions. I’ve added that, as well as an asterisk to the word below. I apologize for any offense I have caused. My sincere thanks to the person who reached out about this.

***Trigger warning: Discussion of Prince Harry’s use of a racial slur***

Harry does not shy away from addressing the controversies in his past, including his choice to wear a Nazi costume to a party in 2005. I applaud him for the guidance he sought after (although, worth noting, this only came after considerable public and media pressure). On his visit to speak with a Rabbi, Harry writes, “I’d arrived at his house feeling shame. I now felt something else, a bottomless self-loathing. But that wasn’t the rabbi’s aim. He spoke to me with the quality one often encounters in truly wise people — forgiveness. He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature. I was showing my true nature, he said, by seeking to atone.”

This is another “yes, and” situation for me. YES, Harry did the work to understand what he had done wrong in that instance. AND there are other examples in the book that I felt revealed the work he has left to do. His apology to Ahmed Raza Kahn, a fellow cadet whom he referred to on video as “Our little P*ki friend,” fell short. He offers a lot of excuses as to why he didn’t think it was wrong — “harmless” even — and that he felt really badly after he got caught saying it. But he doesn’t share if he learned why it was, in fact, a racist thing to say. 

His story has one clear villain: the media

This is another thing that falls in the category of “we knew that” BUT I’d say I have a much greater understanding now than I did before. Harry returns, time and time and time again, to how the media has disrupted and damaged his life, from his feelings on the paparazzi’s role in his mother’s death to how a press report forced his early return from Afghanistan to the ways the collective hounding scared off several girlfriends. Chelsy Davy, he writes, did not want to sign up for “a lifetime of being stalked” to which Harry adds: “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want this life either.”

The journalist in me wishes Harry would have taken a paragraph or two to explain the relationship between the palace and the press, how it got to this point and how each benefits from the other. Or even simply distinguish between the types of press, instead of condemning it all in one fell swoop. But the reader in me feels tremendous sympathy and anger on his behalf. He was absolutely a victim of atrocious invasion of privacy.

The prince saves some of his most scathing language for a handful of members of the British press and a pair of photographers. Take what he said about Rebekah Brooks of the now-shuttered News of the World (before he delights over her arrest in the phone-hacking scandal): “She was an infected pustule on the arse of humanity, plus a shit excuse for a journalist.” If some parts feel penned by his ghostwriter, that bit felt all Harry. 

About all that todger talk…

Speaking of nether regions…ok, WOW. I was prepared for the frostbitten ~bits~ because of what was leaked ahead of time. But I can’t say I expected the extent to which Harry goes there and then goes several step further. 

 If I put on my writer hat, especially as someone who has dabbled in first-person essays, there is always a push to go there. It builds trust with readers when you share something they wouldn’t necessarily expect you to share. But the bar, in royal chatter, for what causes a gasp or some pearl clutching is frightfully low. (In fashion, it’s when Kate wore shorts! GASP.) Harry didn’t have to go this far. 

So why did he? If you look at when the todger talk comes, it’s quite a heavy point in the narrative. Harry is in between his tours in Afghanistan, around the time he describes his brother’s wedding as almost like a funeral and the press hounding has reached a fever pitch. The frostbitten penis is a bit of welcome levity. It checks so many boxes, from revealing to ridiculous, while being a bit of a distraction. Perfect fodder for the tabloids to squawk about! Also, it gets him out of describing other intimate scenes. (My husband, Matt, dubbed it the OSS — which was a new concept to me. If you want to know more, have a listen to episode 4 of the podcast.)

His raw, intimate portrait of war

As someone who has no direct experience with the military, nor do I come from a military family, I particularly appreciated Harry’s willingness to share his time in Afghanistan. As he was describing the helicopter scenes, it occurred to me that I might not have otherwise sought out this sort of in-depth, personal view of conflict. And how we’re all better for knowing this side? Add to that Harry’s desire to put himself in such a dangerous position, a very important and revealing part of his narrative. 

A moment for ghostwriter Moehringer here, who did a fantastic job lacing together descriptions with really profound reflections. Take all the talk of sand when Harry first arrived in Afghanistan.  “Everyone and everything at Dwyer was either caked with sand or sprinkled with sand or painted the color of sand,” Harry writes, musing on how it stuck to hair, eyelashes, and necks and made people look “like fillets of fish that’d been breadcrumbed before frying.” Then Moehringer, I presume, helps him step back and take a longer viewer. “You couldn’t stare at that many grains of sand without also thinking about eternity,” he writes. “All that shifting, swirling, whirling sand, you felt it saying something to you about your minuscule niche in the cosmos. Ashes to ashes. Sand to sand.”

Back to reading the book I go! But mostly: There’s so much more in my Spare companion podcast. I hope you’ll have a listen. Catch all the episodes here.

More Spare takes to think about

Anyone else doing a little side Googling as you listen/read Spare? I wanted to share a few links I found interesting (note: some of these contain spoilers about the second half of the book):

• Prince Harry’s interview with Byrony Gordon: ‘This is not about trying to collapse the monarchy, this is about trying to save them from themselves’ (The Telegraph, Substack)

• Prince Harry’s extended interview with Stephen Colbert (YouTube)

• Review: The haunting of Prince Harry (The New Yorker)

• Review: Prince Harry prides himself as a feminist, so how far did Spare go at exploring the undeniable sexism experienced by the women in his life? (Glamour UK)

• Opinion: Beware the ‘spare’: let’s drop the need for a second-in-line, and let Harry be the last (The Guardian)

• On Harry’s ghostwriter: JR Moehringer grew up with a love of The Prince and the Pauper. Now he’s written Prince Harry’s memoir (The Independent)

• On the people Harry writes about: Who’s in Prince Harry’s inner circle – and who’s been left out. (The Telegraph)

• The New York Times’s reviewer on the hunt for an advance copy: Could Anyone Spare a ‘Spare’? No. (The New York Times)

• Looking to put faces to names? Here is more (with pics!) on trusted aides Marko and JLP, some backstory on nanny Tiggy, the Instagram feeds of Chelsy and Cressida, and a look at Teej and Mike’s production company.

Ok, you guys, I have reached the 😳 todger talk 😳 portion of Spare AND I HAVE THOUGHTS. Or rather a theory as to why he shared it!

This fourth episode of my companion podcast covers

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Y’all, we are doing this! We are reading Spare together! Thank you for the phenomenal response to this experiment of mine.

This third episode of my mini companion podcast covers Part 2, Chapters 1 to 39, spanning Harry’s thwart…

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Welcome to the second installment of audio thoughts on Prince Harry’s Spare. As I read the memoir, I’m pausing at what I find to be breaks or shifts in the narrative to record reflections on what I’ve read.

Thi…

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Welcome to audio thoughts! Trying something new as a I read Spare, Prince Harry’s new memoir. I’ll be pausing at what I find to be breaks or shifts in the narrative to reflect on what I’ve read.

This firs…

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Hello! The frenzy around the release of Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, is reaching a fever pitch. I am doing my best to avoid the clickbait headlines and wait to read the book in its entirety when it comes out on Jan. 10. Then I promise to share allllll the thoughts.

Below you’ll find more details on my plans, as well as something I’m especially excited about — how YOU can host your own gathering to talk about Spare. Read on for more.

Please note: Most aspects of the SMT Book Club will be available to paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting my work! You can upgrade your subscription for $5/month by clicking here. If you cannot afford a subscription, send me an email at Hello@SoManyThoughts.com.

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PS: Make sure you have a copy of the book! Pre-order Spare from Amazon, Bookshop or your local independent book seller. If you plan on listening to Harry read Spare, you can find it on Audible from Amazon or Libro.fm, which supports local bookstores.

SMT Book Club for Spare — All the Details

Here’s what to expect from me following Harry’s book release on Jan. 10.

🎧 Audio SMTs

Read Spare along with me as I try something new: audio thoughts. My plan is to pause at natural breaks in the book and record my real-time reactions. I love audio as a format, the intimacy and the emotion it can convey (which is why I’m planning to listen to Harry read Spare). My hope is that these audio posts will be candid and conversational; think of it like a mini companion podcast as you read. I’ll send paid subscribers a link to the audio when it’s ready. You can listen on Substack or your favorite podcasting app.

🧵 Discussion Threads

As you are reading through portions of Spare and are ready to discuss, SMT is there for you! Just like with Harry and Meghan’s Netflix docu-series, I’ll be creating discussion threads for paid subscribers to dive into designated sections of the book. (I’m waiting to get my hands on the book before deciding how many discussion threads there will be, but envisioning somewhere between two and four to keep the conversation focused.) The first one will go up on Tuesday, Jan. 10 as soon as I’ve had a chance to read/listen listen to roughly a quarter of the book. I’ve really enjoyed the quality of our discussions on Substack, and I can’t wait to read your thoughts on Spare.

✍️ SMT Newsletters with My Thoughts

I’ll also share my thoughts via this newsletter, much like I did for H&M on Netflix. Right now I think I will break it up into two parts, writing one newsletter at the halfway point of the book and a second newsletter at the end. But that may change! We’ll have to see if there are more natural breaks in the structure of the book once it comes out.

Along with the above, I will find a way to answer your questions — perhaps in audio, perhaps another Zoom webinar, perhaps with a guest or several, TBD. It depends a bit on what the book has to say, so stay tuned.

And it goes without saying that I’ll be Insta-ing the highlights, too. Make sure you are following along at @EHolmes.

BUT MOSTLY: For those of you who want even more, we’re trying something new and (I hope!) quite fun. Drumroll please…

📚 Host Your Own SMT Book Club Meet-Up

At my Boston book signing, someone asked if I could help organize a local, in-person book club for Spare. My first thought: YES, I CAN. I love that idea! I hear from people all the time that they want to connect with other members of the SMT community. I know the feeling of being the only one in a friend circle that follows the royal family or exhausting my partner with endless chattering. 🙃 So what if we could set up SMT Book Club meet-ups to discuss Spare in person or online? How fun would that be?

This is a bit of an experiment. Here is what I am thinking:

1. I need a some helpers! Or rather, hosts. We are looking for a few SMTers who would like to organize a book club meet-up near the end of January, either in-person or online. That means you are willing to handle the coordination (emailing with interested participants) and drive the discussion once it happens. Click here for more info on hosting, plus the form to sign up!

2. Then, let’s gather a group. We will put together a list of the people willing to host and what kind of meet-up they want to have (in-person or virtual, any themes that jump out, etc.) then share it with the people who want to join a discussion. We’ll do a little matchmaking on our end to connect folks via email.

3. And finally, you’ll meet. We’re thinking the week of Jan. 23 or 30 would be best to allow everyone a chance to finish the book. But timing is ultimately up to the host! I’ll provide a few discussion topics to kick off the conversation.

Host an SMT Book Club meet-up

SMT Book Club meet-ups will be offered to paid newsletter subscribers. If you cannot afford a subscription, or have any questions, please send me an email at Hello@SoManyThoughts.com with the subject “SMT Book Club.”

Hooray! Thank you for your willingness to try this out! Excited to think this all through with you.

Updated, Friday, 1/20: Scroll down for a list of updated cities!

Update, Monday 1/9: Scroll down for the list of cities with hosts! And please sign up to host if you don’t see your city. We will send details on how to JOIN an SMT Book Club meet-up soon. Stay tuned!

Raise your hand if you have thoughts on Spare! Prince Harry’s highly anticipated memoir co…

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