Singer and actress Cynthia Erivo has been up to much more than just starring in the new Wicked movies. This summer, she released an album titled I Forgive You. Then, on Nov. 18, she released her debut book, Simply More.
The latter was published just days before the Wicked: For Good movie hit theaters. It is part memoir and part self-help book. It is only around 200 pages, and aims to explore the challenges and nuances of being considered “too much.”
It breaks down the feeling of being judged, subdued, and restricted by a world which may not be accepting of your personality, identity, or dreams. She asserts that you are not too much, but simply more; that being much or more isn’t inherently negative.
The book is, of course, deeply personal— resembling a memoir. It takes a deep dive into Erivo’s life and the lessons she’s learned through a variety of experiences, some quite emotionally vulnerable.
However, Erivo reaches past herself and engages the reader through carefully crafted and organized chapters with specific lessons to take away and questions to consider. This resembles a self-help style.
In fact, each chapter ends by directly asking the reader a question or two related to the life lesson Evrio explored in the chapter. She gives direct and clear advice for the reader to take.
The book finds its narrative by comparing life to the three stages (the 10/10/10 rule) of running a marathon. Running with your head, legs, and heart; this, to Erivo, represents figuring yourself out, applying what you’ve learned, and finally letting go and allowing what you’ve built to carry you. There’s also a great use of Erivo’s characters she has played in her musical theatre roles to represent different emotions and viewpoints on life.
Much of the book’s message is about following your desires and chasing your dreams, using examples of her own career and life as an example. This narrative style and the well-placed anecdotes really shine to me. There are also some short poetry-style chapters that I enjoyed.
I believe Erivo has a valuable and powerful story to tell. Erivo is a tremendously successful person who truly built herself from the ground up. She came from a low-income household with a single mother. She struggled to fit in and be taken seriously in school and later in acting. She’s faced adversity in being a Black woman, who is also queer, with big dreams and an outspoken voice.
Erivo’s perspective is attentive and self-aware. She knows when she has been mistreated, but knows where empathy for others is due. As I mentioned before, there is a sense of vulnerability that makes a reader feel that they are truly being let in.
One trait I find in a good memoir is the ability to reanimate their past selves and speak from the mind of a child or young adult in a way that feels authentic. It brings us into that person’s true self and experience. Erivo does just that; you can feel the maturity and the lessons learned grow through the narrative. She goes from being a school-girl who talks “too much,” to a young adult learning to find confidence in pursuing music and theater, to a woman finding confidence in her career and life choices.
Her stories of being abandoned by her father, being chastised by adults as a child, struggling to find her path, paying her way through drama school, finding opportunities as a Black woman, or coming out as queer were touching and honest. Just in exploring her personal fears, failures, and accomplishments, we see that her desires led to where she belonged all along. Questioning her instincts didn’t help her, even when others made her feel she should.
The flaw, from my perspective, was that I found the self-help and memoir styles to be contradictory at times. This book reads like it was meant to be just a memoir.
The flow of a gorgeously written narrative is consistently cut off by Erivo explaining what to do or what to think about. She gives little room for the reader to explore the way the stories make them individually feel. She hands exactly what she wants the reader to take away on a platter, as if not trusting them to find those messages in her story themselves.
At times, it felt similar to reading a textbook. The questions at the end of each chapter felt like quiz or discussion questions at the end of a unit. The clear-cut advice feels like instructions. Some advice even feels like a task or assignment. She asks you to close your eyes and imagine something, or what to think of before going to sleep tonight. She tells you what behaviors to accept, or how to approach certain situations.
I do not believe that any of the things Erivo promotes are bad. I enjoyed most, if not all of the lessons she is trying to teach. She wants to convey a message and be uplifting and motivational, but some of those things feel forced upon the reader as opposed to naturally brought forth by the stories that are entirely capable of doing so.
To share her findings and viewpoint on life, Erivo doesn’t need to write a self-help book. Her life is so full of important experiences and complexities that a memoir could do the job easily. I just wish there was more of it. I think the book would be elevated with the removal of certain paragraphs and questions, and instead replaced with extended explanations of the life experiences that have shaped the philosophy she is sharing with us.
It’s not that I believe a memoir or personal story shouldn’t address the reader directly or ask specific questions, but I think it should be done in a way that is intentional and benefits the whole of the story in a way beyond what the reader would have gotten upon first reading. This book does it in a way that feels unnecessary or repetitive.
I gave the book 2.5/5 stars; right in the middle. I loved pieces of it, but felt there was more to be desired. Two hundered pages felt quite short for a life so full and expansive. I admire Erivo very much, and I would love to see more writing from her to explore her life which is so inspiring and beautiful.