Elegant and reproving ... Most compelling as a postcard from the siblings’ nursery, where their bond was solidified ... Even with all its bitterness toward bad actors, like the deceptive Diana interviewer Martin Bashir, this is a lyrical book that delights in moments of the British absurd.
Part misery memoir, part revenge tragedy, this is a curious document ... Feels like a therapy session in which the patient will talk about anyone other than himself ... The contradictions are many. He is obsessed with the cruelty and opportunism of the press, yet his writing spares no one ... Memories and opinions are mixed throughout ... Provides acute insight into the privileged misery of a 1960s childhood of divorce, a subject Mr. Spencer also braved in A Very Private School (2024). But his new attempt at closure reminds us how real events can be written from very different perspectives that, other than on the baldest of facts, would agree on very little. I am not sure what he is trying to say; I am not sure he even knows. It’s hard to argue with the king’s estimation that the Spencers lack a sense of duty. For an intelligent man and fluent historian, this spite work on the royals—for that is it what it is—is written with all the subtlety of a rabid corgi.
A fascinating document that tells us a little about Diana and a great deal about Charles Spencer – perhaps more than we needed to know. If that sounds snarky, after 400 pages of score settling, chest thumping, wild indiscretion and some truly touching passages about his late sister, the reader is left with a head-spinning story of the world that created Diana and a certain sourness at the manner in which it is told ... For fans of petty grievances, among whom I count myself, the book is an absolute corker of resentment ... Interspersed with these delights is a portrait of Diana that is affectionate, sad, and lovely in places ... Still, the book suffers from problems of self pity and self regard.
