Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much
5 | 4 ratings
Price: 20.28
Last update: 11-30-2025
Product details
- Publisher : Flatiron Books
- Publication date : November 18, 2025
- Language : English
- Print length : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1250428327
- ISBN-13 : 978-1250428325
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.7 x 0.75 x 8.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank:#549 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Actor & Entertainer Biographies
- Black & African American Biographies
- Women's Biographies
- Customer Reviews:4.84.8 out of 5 stars(30)
Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too MuchTop reviews from the United States
- Mrs. DonaldsonNever apologize for being too much! Just be "Simply More"Cynthia Erivo’s Simply More is not your typical celebrity memoir. Instead of a linear life story, she offers a series of beautifully written vignettes that feel like intimate conversations. Each chapter is short but powerful, weaving together themes of family, queerness, artistry, and resilience.
What makes this book stand out is Erivo’s honesty. She doesn’t shy away from painful moments—like her father’s absence or the silence around her queerness—but she transforms them into lessons about strength and authenticity. Her reflections on representation, especially her journey to playing Elphaba in Wicked, are inspiring and affirming.
The hardback edition is stunning, with a bold design that mirrors the book’s message of embracing “too muchness.” It feels like a keepsake, something you’ll want to revisit and underline.
Whether you’re a longtime admirer of Cynthia Erivo or simply someone who’s ever been told you’re “too much,” this book is a reminder that “too much” is exactly enough. It’s heartfelt, empowering, and deeply resonant.
Highly recommended for fans representation, and anyone seeking courage to live unapologetically. - JoleneSimply thank you :)This is my first review of anything ever. I'm currently on my second listen through. Sometimes pieces of art come to you when you need them most in life and this book is exactly that. It is a collection of inspiring, insightful, and nurturing conversations that arises from some of the challenges and pain we experience in life. Thank you Cynthia for being you, for sharing your gifts with the world, and for encouraging us to share ours and be simply more ❤️
- AnonUnlimited Magic ❤️????It is 12am, I have been reading this beautiful piece of work since 10:30pm. I need to turn to a new page after each one finishes. Perfect moments of conversation you can almost hear her speak to you, love the short chapters and the long chapters. Everything about this book is addictive. She makes you bring it back to you with questions for you to answer. It's bright, shiny, glimmering hope page after page. It's joy and appreciation. It's gorgeous ????
- Britt GSimply Cynthia!Really enjoyed this quick read! Cynthia shares snippets of her life and asks the reader some thought provoking questions. She challenges the reader to be their best self, unapologetically.
- SizzlerCGreat Story: Simply MoreThis book was very inspirational. I bought the audio book and the delivery was very calm and soothing. One of the best books that I've ever read. I would recommend this book to everyone.
- C. PierceI have no words.This book is simply amazing. It touched me deeply. I cried, in a good, healing, and cleansing
way, throughout its entirety. This book is simply a gift. - Sheri TapscottI LOVE it!This book speaks to me.
- The West FamilyTIMELESSCynthia Erivo, that woman of big voice and bigger spirit—beloved sister to the multitudes online—has set down her truth on paper. Her memoir, Simply More: A Book for Anyone Who Has Been Told They’re Too Much, arrived today in the form of an audio book read by herself. Across two hundred and eight pages, she gathers the pieces of her life: the South London girlhood, the drama schools, and the winding road that carried her to the bright lights of the West End and Broadway.
In these pages, Erivo looks back at the father who turned away from her. She was only sixteen, standing in a London train station, when he disowned her. There is a deep irony in it, she notes, for she carries his mark still: she shares his singing voice and the gap in her front teeth. In speaking to NPR, she says she has found a place of acceptance, a "strange apathy" that settles like dust after a storm. She is not waiting for him anymore. "I don’t wish him harm," she says, "but it’s not like I’m waiting for some grand resolution." She has released the need to mend what was broken by another’s hand.
She writes, too, of the journey to her own heart. For years, as a teenager, she hid her love for women, keeping it quiet and small. It was not until her late twenties that she walked fully into that light. It has not been an easy road for her mother and sister to understand; it is a river they are "still navigating," she says, even as she stands firm in who she is.
The world has not always been kind to her brilliance. Erivo bears witness to the stinging racism and the small cuts of microaggressions she endured in her work. She remembers the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where they asked her to sing from behind a curtain so white classmates could lip-sync to her voice—wanting the gift, but not the woman. And when she stepped into the shoes of Celie for The Color Purple in London, the critics complained. They said she was not "gray" enough, not "decrepit" enough, that the violence was not enough. Imagine that—telling a Black woman she does not look broken enough.
But these trials have only deepened the well from which she draws. They shape her song and her spirit, fueling her return to the stage as Elphaba, opposite Ariana Grande in Wicked, where she defies gravity once more.