Book ~ "Diana's Baby" (2013) Angela Levin

From Goodreads ~ HRH the Duke of Cambridge, better known perhaps as Prince William of Wale, had every advantage as the Queen's grandson - except the one he really needed. He was deprived of a secure family background by parents who themselves had never enjoyed the stability and protection that family life can bring. But Prince William seems now to have broken the destructive cycle of dysfunctional parenting by marrying Kate Middleton, an ordinary girl whose vary name hints at the English middle classes form which she comes. 

Will the birth of their first baby rescue the Royal Family generations of private unhappiness? Diana's Baby: Kate, William and the Repair of a Broken Family, by Angela Levin, is the story of the seed that Princess Diana sowed in her son but never lived to reap.

With the birth of William and Kate's baby any time (my 24th cousin, btw), I thought this would be an interesting book to read.  It gives us the backgrounds of Diana and Charles, their parents, and William and Harry ... and how everyone's upbringing and behaviour had affected everyone.

I liked this book but I didn't like it.

I liked the writing style ... it was an easy read and was well-paced.  I liked that it was high level and didn't get into a lot of details.  It was a reminder of events that had happened over the years (though nothing I didn't already know).  There were nice colour pictures of Charles, Diana, William, Harry and Kate.

What I didn't like was how nasty the author was.  She took shots at everyone from the Queen and Prince Philip (she was too busy taking care of the Commonwealth to care about her kids and he was cold and unemotional) to the Middletons (how they are apparently taking advantage of Kate's marriage to promote themselves).  I know the focus of the book was to show how everything contributed to William being disfunctional (if he actually is) but I'm sure these people have some nice qualities too.

Diana gets attacked the most.  She is portrayed as paranoid, crazy and needy who leaned on young William as her confidante (with just a brief mention of all the good she did with charities).   The author doesn't portray Charles as an angel but she's definitely pro-Charles and anti-Diana.  Poor Charles was just doing the best he could with a nutbar wife he couldn't relate to.  Really!?

Here's an example ... I found this offensive.  Diana had just died.

Perhaps too William felt a tiny measure of unspoken relief that, however great the tragedy, he no longer had to cope with his mother's hysterics or never knowing when her emotions would spill over and she would be reduced to tears of desperation.

Seriously!?  Relief that his mother was dead??!!

The author makes a lot of assumptions and but didn't show any evidence on how she can back them up.