Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Spare by Prince Harry

98 reviews

laurenabeth's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death of parent, Death, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Gun violence, Pregnancy, Classism, Racism, War, Suicidal thoughts, Racial slurs, Car accident, and Bullying

Minor: Drug use, Stalking, Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Gaslighting, and Alcohol

anasf21's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Gaslighting, Classism, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Alcohol, Grief, Miscarriage, Racism, and Pregnancy

hannahcstocks's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Violence, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Stalking, Classism, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, Child abuse, Bullying, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Death of parent, Death, Racism, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Gaslighting, Colonisation, War, Murder, and Miscarriage

kim_lommaert's review

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent and War

Moderate: Racism and Stalking

Minor: Alcohol, Drug use, Miscarriage, and Suicidal thoughts

dogoodwithbooks's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

CW: death/grief, car accident, recreational drug and alcohol use, divorce, warfare, 9/11 attacks (recounted), animal death, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, harassment, suicidal ideation, suicide, heart attack 

While this book deals with a lot of heavy topics, Prince Harry is brilliantly able to tell his side of the story for the first time ever. 

Over the course of 15 hours and 40 minutes, Prince Harry’s memoir felt more like a long podcast than a book, which I thought was interesting. Don’t be put off by the total duration as the chapters are very short and you can breeze through them very quickly if you want to. 

After hearing Prince Harry’s point of view, I think that the reasons behind things he did made a bit more sense. I’m not going to lie because I wasn’t a huge royal family observer prior to Spare, but I do think that this book brought more insight on who the royal family might actually be. Add that to the poignant and illustrative writing style going over Prince Harry’s life story, this is a book worth investing in and especially through an audiobook.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Grief, Mental illness, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, and Suicide

Minor: Animal death

kbairbooks's review

challenging emotional funny lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

I did not grow up knowing anything about the Royals, and for many years of my teenage and young adult life did not understand the appeal of learning and speaking about these people. I remember times in my life seeing headlines and wondering, how could they possibly be true and how could they possibly talk about other human beings like that no matter what their status is. Over the past couple of years, more or less since Megan‘s entrance into the Royal family, I became more interested and learned more about the royal family and their dynamic and so forth. The amount of empathy and sorrow I feel for Harry and Meghan, and also the pride and joy of their strength of character, their strength of heart, and their love for each other is just beautiful to witness. And overall I appreciate the vulnerability and honesty of writing a book such as this which is so open and vulnerable. It takes a courageous person to be vulnerable and speak their truth regardless of others’ perceptions.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Misogyny, War, Abandonment, Bullying, Panic attacks/disorders, Stalking, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Hate crime, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Classism, Death of parent, Drug use, Pregnancy, Racism, Car accident, and Racial slurs

Minor: Pandemic/Epidemic

ash_bees's review

informative slow-paced

3.0

Living life under a microscope has it's consequences.  A young prince loses his mother at a tender age and is haunted--literally and figuratively--by the cause of her death.

Other reviewers commented that this reads as if written by multiple authors, I'd suggest at least three.  The writing could have benefitted from a really heavy editor, and would have been more effective if it was cut down to half or a third.  But that seems to be par for the course for books I've read from people with celebrity status.

The takeaways from this are two-fold:  (1) the importance of speaking up to right wrongs, especially when you're an ally and not the target; and (2) knowing that speaking up may not change the offender's future actions but can gain you more allies or let other similarly situated people know they're not alone.

Lots of trigger warnings for this book.  I wouldn't necessarily say it's spilling the tea, but it does cover lots of death, feelings of abandonment and betrayal, and stalking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Abandonment, Alcohol, Child death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Death, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Bullying, Car accident, Classism, Racial slurs, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Miscarriage

staceyinthesticks's review against another edition

emotional reflective medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent and Grief

Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Car accident, Cursing, Drug use, Pregnancy, Death, Racism, War, Mental illness, and Suicidal thoughts

alykate's review

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Grief, Bullying, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Drug use, Racism, Stalking, and Suicidal thoughts

optimisticcautiously's review

challenging sad tense slow-paced

1.0

This book made me hate Harry. He describes hurting people in such callous terms (not just his bragging about killing Taliban - and, no matter what he claims, he was bragging- but also incidents like the fireworks in the hole, THAT NO ONE SEEMS TO TALK ABOUT).

Also, his descriptions of his “service” are such a joke. He has no clue what it is like to serve. He missed the entire point of hostile environment training. He describes the favouritism he received without realizing that’s what he is describing.

Plus his lack of insight that the criticism reported is based on his behaviour. Plus his freaking Oedipal Complex. Plus his todger stories. And…

He thinks no one was protecting him, but this book shows the Palace was protecting him from being revealed to the public for the ass he is. Don’t believe me? Read it in his own words.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Death of parent, Alcohol, Mental illness, and Sexual assault

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Antisemitism, and Misogyny

Lack of compassion/empathy (bordering on sociopathic behaviour). Possible narcissistic abuse.