Prince Harry - Spare

 

Prince Harry - Spare 

4 ⭐

Genre: Memoir, Autobiography, Biography, Non-Fiction

Time: 15h 37mins

Narrator: Prince Harry 

Format: Audiobook

Publisher: Random House Audio/Audible  

Date Published: 10th January 2023 

 

Book Blurb: 

It was one of the most searing images of the twentieth century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow—and horror. As Princess Diana was laid to rest, billions wondered what Prince William and Prince Harry must be thinking and feeling—and how their lives would play out from that point on.

For Harry, this is that story at last.

Before losing his mother, twelve-year-old Prince Harry was known as the carefree one, the happy-go-lucky Spare to the more serious Heir. Grief changed everything. He struggled at school, struggled with anger, with loneliness—and, because he blamed the press for his mother’s death, he struggled to accept life in the spotlight.

At twenty-one, he joined the British Army. The discipline gave him structure, and two combat tours made him a hero at home. But he soon felt more lost than ever, suffering from post-traumatic stress and prone to crippling panic attacks. Above all, he couldn’t find true love.

Then he met Meghan. The world was swept away by the couple’s cinematic romance and rejoiced in their fairy-tale wedding. But from the beginning, Harry and Meghan were preyed upon by the press, subjected to waves of abuse, racism, and lies. Watching his wife suffer, their safety and mental health at risk, Harry saw no other way to prevent the tragedy of history repeating itself but to flee his mother country. Over the centuries, leaving the Royal Family was an act few had dared. The last to try, in fact, had been his mother. . . .

For the first time, Prince Harry tells his own story, chronicling his journey with raw, unflinching honesty. A landmark publication, Spare is full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.

My Review: 

I had to listen to this, as I have seen so many excerpts from it all over social media after its release. So, I gave it a go. I also wanted to hear Prince Harry’s side of the story and not just tabloids. Honestly, it was interesting, and I am glad I listened to it rather than read it. I feel like if I read it, I would have DNF’ed it halfway through, as it felt so long whilst I was listening to it. It was way too long. Surely some things could have been edited out, as there was so much repetition.

That said, I did enjoy parts of this book and it was refreshing to hear Prince’s POV on everything that has happened and take a glimpse into his childhood and growing up. I mean I can’t relate to anything in this book, as I am not rich or royal, but it was nice to see that he experiences just as many emotions as anyone else is. It was also interesting to read about the pressures of being royal and privileged, as well as having your life covered by media 24-7.

Overall: It was an interesting read. I don’t think I need to cover anything else, since this book was covered and scrutinised in bits by people. I enjoyed listening to it. I also enjoyed learning about Harry and seeing his POV. I do think, however, that it was a very long book that could have used more editing.  

About the Author:

Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, is a husband, father, humanitarian, military veteran, mental wellness advocate, and environmentalist. He resides in Santa Barbara, California, with his family and three dogs.

https://princeharrymemoir.com

Viola Davis - Finding Me

Viola Davis - Finding Me 

5⭐

Genre: Memoir, Biography, Autobiography, Non-Fiction 

Pages: 304

Format: Hardback 

Publisher: Coronet, Hodder & Stoughton 

Date Published: 26th April 2022

 

Huge thank you to Tandem Collective UK and Hodder & Stoughton for sending me this book to read and review. 

Book Blurb: 

Finding Me is Viola Davis' story, in her own words, and spans her incredible, inspiring life, from her coming-of-age in Rhode Island to her present day. Hers is a story of overcoming, a true hero's journey. Deeply personal, brutally honest, and riveting, Finding Me is a timeless and spellbinding memoir that will capture hearts and minds around the globe.

IN MY BOOK, YOU WILL MEET a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.

My Review: 

What an amazing memoir! I already loved Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder but after reading this book, I realised how amazing of a human being she is. I now have such a deep admiration for her! 

In parts, it was so hard to read about her challenging childhood and all the traumas she experienced through her younger years, but what amazed me the most was Viola’s determination, resilience and strength. This memoir allowed me to get a glimpse into her personal life, from a traumatic childhood where she and her family didn’t have food to eat for days, to her struggling to belong in Julliard as a Black acting student…In this book, Viola also talks openly about the film and acting industry and how hard is to get to the top. For me, this memoir was sad, and shocking yet at the same time very inspiring. It was so interesting to read how honestly Viola talks about struggling to find self-love until later in adulthood and how she felt like she finally belonged when on the set of How to Get Away with Murder.

The memoir starts from the very beginning, Viola’s hard childhood which was filled with abuse, lack of food, poverty, racism, living without hot water and being in a house infested by rats…It wasn’t pretty but even little Viola had that strong determination and passion to get out of poverty and become something bigger. Over the years she pushed herself to achieve that, even though the path was not always easy or straight. She had to go through so many obstacles and with that also had to find herself, especially start loving herself. This memoir is full of successes, changes, failures, courage, resilience, strength, love, wisdom and determination. It displays the ugly and the pretty of Viola Davis’s life from her birth up until now.

Overall: It is the best memoir I have read this year. I now love Viola Davis even more! She is such an inspiration for strength and resilience. I think this book should be on everyone’s bookshelf or their TBR. I will be definitely revisiting this book, but this time in audio format as Viola narrates the book herself, which I think would bring out some parts of the book even further and have a bigger impact on the reader. It is such an intimate, honest and raw memoir that left such a significant impact on me. 

About the Author:

Viola Davis is the only Black actor to have achieved the “triple crown” of acting, winning an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Tony for her work in film, television, and the theater. The New York Times named Davis one of the ten greatest actors of the twenty-first century. In addition to her acting work, she is an acclaimed producer and philanthropist. 

https://twitter.com/violadavis

Brian Verity - Why My Wife Had To Die

Brian Verity - Why My Wife Had To Die 

4⭐

Genre: Non- Fiction, Health, Medical, Autobiography

Pages: 302

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Envelope Books

Date Published: 3rd March 2022

Huge thank you to Envelope Books for sending me a copy of this book to read and review. 

 

Book Blurb: 

When Mary Verity started to display the same early symptoms of Huntington's disease that her mother and older brother had shown, no one took her condition seriously or knew how to respond to it.

From the health and social services departments of the local authority to the government and the church, Mary was given no choice about how to plan for what would become her inevitable physical and mental deterioration.

Support bodies were no help either.  

In this tough, uncompromising book, Brian Verity raises difficult ethical questions about the freedoms granted to carriers of the Huntington's gene to raise children of their own and the lack of freedom given to them to end their lives.

This is not a book with a happy ending, nor have its full ramifications yet been embedded into our supposedly caring society. 

My Review: 

This book was definitely hard to read emotionally as it deals with real people, their emotions and their lives. However, I also think the book touches upon very important subjects and is a very powerful read. It is a very eye-opening book, especially for those like me who don’t know much about Huntington’s disease. This story hooked me from the very beginning and I read this book in one sitting, as I just had to know what happened in the end to Mary.

This book is narrated by Mary’s husband Brian and we see mainly his point of view on how both of them dealt with Mary’s condition. He briefly starts the book with how they both met and then talks about how he first started to notice Mary’s symptoms, which then followed by her diagnosis and then the struggles they both as a couple had to endure as Mary’s condition worsened over the next 2-3 years.

I liked learning about Mary’s story and Huntington’s disease through this book, as previously I didn’t know much about it. So, in that aspect, it was a very eye-opening and heartbreaking read. I also liked that the book showed how little doctors knew about this condition back in the 60s and 70s and how the health support wasn’t the best in that regard from the doctors and local GPs who treated Mary and her family. To me, it displayed how far our medical knowledge and health services improved from the 60s. Additionally, I liked that this book was from a carer’s point of view and how hard and exhausting at times it is to care for your loved ones and to be a carer. This story gave a glimpse of the reality of people who aren’t professionally trained to be carers but still have to take care of their ill loved ones and their struggles physically and mentally.

However, there were parts of this book that were so hard to read. Especially, the author’s controversial obsession with the fact that the only way to stop Huntington’s is to sterilise those who carry the gene or forcibly stop them from procreating. I was quite shocked by some of the opinions he expressed regarding this subject.

I was also quite shocked at how at times he treated Mary, including keeping things from her, being angry with her deteriorating and not being the wife, she was before, as well as,  constantly expressing anger towards her and even having an affair whilst Mary was ill. He openly stated a few times in the book that the more her illness progressed the more his love turned into pity. Part of me realises how hard it must have been to him to see his wife deteriorating and having to deal with all that alone but at the same time, I was rather angry at him because from his accounts all Mary needed was love, empathy and support, because she struggled just as much as Brian did. He also refused to accept any help for Mary from the social services and others, especially if their opinions were different from his about Huntington’s.

Overall: An eye-opening and thought-provoking book that touches so many important topics, including the mental and physical health of carers, voluntary euthanasia, help and support from health services for those with incurable conditions, medical knowledge of conditions in the 60s and 70s and much more. A very important, captivating and worth-reading story that would not leave you for a while. 

About the Author:

Brian Verity lived through the trauma of finding he had married into a family whose members all carried the gene for Huntington’s disease and who suffered accordingly — as he would too, though for other reasons.

​

It became his mission to mitigate the consequences of his wife's condition and educate the public about its horrors.

​

Following his wife’s suicide, he was questioned at length by the police and kept under surveillance for a year. He went on to campaign for voluntary euthanasia. He died in 2019. 

​

Stephen Games, who edited his book, was in contact with Brian Verity in the year before he died, and is available to talk about the raw issues raised by the author and about the wider context of the book.

​https://www.envelopebooks.co.uk/why-my-wife-had-to-die

Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt

Adam Kay - This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor 

4.5⭐

Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Autobiography, Medical, STEM, Humor.

Pages:  285

Format: Paperback 

Publisher: Picador 

Date Published: 7th September 2017 

Book Blurb: 

Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking meter earns more than you.

Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights and missed weekends, Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the NHS front line. Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.

My Review: 

I finished this book in like 3 hours and honestly, it made me chuckle and be grossed out and sad…basically the whole spectrum of emotions and more. I also wished it was longer. Nevertheless, it was such an interesting and important book, full of sometimes very dark yet funny British Humour. 

This is Going to Hurt follows Adam Kay’s career as a junior doctor in the National Health Service from when he finishes his medical studies to when he quit the profession years later. The book is written as diary entries and each entry is from his real diaries, which he kept throughout his career as a junior doctor. Through these diary entries, we get a great glimpse and insight into his experiences as an obstetrician-gynaecologist, day-to-day emergencies, personal relationships, and hard and long hours. Most importantly his book doesn’t shy in displaying what is wrong with our National Health Services but at the same time shows that NHS are the ones that keep the country and people going, thus should be valued, cared for and protected at all costs.

I just wish I read it before watching the TV show, as I loved the TV show so much and although the book was brilliant it didn’t live up to the same expectation as the TV show did. Also, there were a few times during the book when Kay’s writing just didn’t work for me but I do believe it is because the book is written in this diary format. I still very much enjoyed the content of the book and the important messages that Adam Kay sends with this book. I also really enjoyed the fact that although Kay has seen in all, whilst being a doctor, he looks at it all with humour too, which was very refreshing to see and read. I would love to listen to the audiobook of this book as I believe I would definitely enjoy it more since it is narrated by the author.

Overall: Very interesting and important book, showing the realities of the NHS in sometimes a bit comedic and humorous way. Yet, this book sends so many important messages about how important the NHS is and how we need to take care of it and take care of people working in it. In this very rare case, I did prefer the TV adaptation of this book but I am glad I read the book too as it gave me a different perspective on what I have seen in the show. I would be reading Kay’s other books, especially if it's humour involved. 

About the Author:

Adam Kay is an award-winning comedian and writer. He previously worked for many years as a junior doctor. His first book "This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor" was a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year and has sold over two million copies. It has been translated into 37 languages and is a winner of four National Book Awards, including Book of the Year, and will be a major new comedy drama for the BBC.

His second book "Twas the Nightshift Before Christmas" was an instant Sunday Times number one bestseller and sold over 500,000 copies in its first few weeks.

"Dear NHS", edited by Adam Kay, was an instant Sunday Times number one with all profits donated to charity. 

https://www.adamkay.co.uk/

Trevor Noah - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

 

Trevor Noah - Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood 

 5 ⭐

Genre: Autobiography, Biography, Humour, True Story, Race.

Pages: 305

Format:  Hardback

Favourite Quote: 'You separate people into groups and make them hate one another so you can run them all' (Page 5).

Book Blurb: 

One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity, sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his relatively young life. A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother - a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life.

My Review: 

This is my first 5-star book of 2022 and honestly, I was completely in love with this book. It was so well written, I just couldn't put it down and will be definitely re-reading it in a near future. 

What I loved the most is that Trevor's childhood experiences, good or bad, were mixed together with snippets of the history of South Africa. It really helped me, someone, who is not familiar with South African history, to be able to understand his story and his experiences. 

I loved how this book wasn't a sugar-coated version of his childhood. The way he wrote it was really personal and all the way through the book, one minute I was crying and the next I was laughing. It was a definite emotional rollercoaster kind of book...

I knew Trevor Noah from his stand-up shows and always found him a funny and relatable comedian. His humour is not only funny but also teaches us a lot about race, languages, cultures, etc. This book, however, made me truly admire and respect him for always seeing the bright side and positivity even in the bleakest and hardest times.  

Overall: It is a MUST READ! For me, it covered some very serious topics, that I personally can relate to, including racism and wanting to be accepted and to belong somewhere. This book also gave me an in-depth view of how it was like to grow up in South Africa as a coloured person and made me realise that sometimes we take things in life for granted. This book showed the struggles, funny moments, determination of Trevor Noah, which is truly inspirational and admirable. Also, what I also admired is his love for his mum, especially for raising him to reach opportunities from a very young age.