549. Spare by Prince Harry, with Melissa Blue

Melissa Blue tweeted that she wanted to talk about Spare.So did I! So, we did!

We talk about the book itself, but we also look at the book from our perspective as romance readers and writers, and also as a larger narrative about dismantling propaganda. As Melissa points out, narratives constructed around Meghan and Harry echo narratives we’ve seen about other people, especially women, in public life who are subjected to propaganda to undermine them.

I talk a lot about how dismissing romance ignores a lot of what romance says and does, and what it represents about people, about sexuality, and about relationships. I think the same is true about celebrity narratives: the public narrative, or the approved narrative, is also very distant from the messy, complicated reality, and this particular set of stories gives us a lot to think about and discuss.

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