Lev Lazinskiy

Simply More by Cynthia Erivo

I love Cynthia Erivo. When I saw her singing “The Wizard and I” at the AMC IMAX in San Francisco last November I felt like I saw Elpheba herself for the very first time. I sat there bawling in my seat remembering the countless times I would listen to Idina Menzel on the original soundtrack sing that song. Back when I also felt like an outsider with big dreams. I told Aosheng after we saw “Wicked: For Good” a few weeks ago that Ariana Grande did a good job playing Glinda, but Cynthia Erivo is Elpheba.

I already heard mixed feedback about the book online before purchasing it at the bookshop downstairs. But I decided to get it anyway because I love Cynthia Erivo and want to be supportive of all her work. But man, this is book is just not good.

I read it in a single sitting, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. I don’t understand what this book is or who it was written for. Is it a memoir? A journal? A self-help book? I don’t get it.

Most of the chapters are a few pages long. Few of them feel complete or connected. They jump around between trauma dumping, cringe inspirational toxic positivity, and the thing I hate most in books like these; the attempt to have a direct conversation with the reader by throwing in “thought provoking” questions. The self-help genre is full of this technique and it typically goes at the end of each chapter. This book sprinkles it generously inside the short chapters.

This was my number one complaint about David Goggins’ “You Can’t Hurt Me”. Whoever decided this was a good idea took a truly inspiring story and completely ruined it with the engagement bait. At least when you see this method used on LinkedIn and YouTube the purpose is to feed the algorithm. What is the point here? Insult the readers intelligence?

The most egregious form of this happens in Chapter 34. “Don’t Play with Me Jon” where she shares the story of when she finds out from Jon Chu that she got the part in Wicked. The chapter is written in the form of a poem, and it’s actually pretty good. The story is so real, you feel the emotion, you want to scream and shout along with her when she finally finds out. But rather than letting that moment of pure joy ring out like the final note of a crescendo, she hits you with:

“What’s the dream you didn’t even know you have?”

😑.

Imagine if in the middle of “The Wizard and I” as Elpheba is belting out “And I’ll stand there with the Wizard, feeling the things I’ve never felt!” you see a pop up slide in on the bottom right of the screen asking you to “share a time you were looking forward to meeting someone” and tag @AMC with #WatchingAMovie. Remember to like and subscribe.

Another annoyance is they keep trying to make “simply more” happen. Every “If Books Could Kill” candidate needs some sort of mantra. The shove the phrase in wherever they can.

“As we go through life and lean in to being simply more”

“They. Them. Used Poetically to describe a person who is simply more”

So I guess this is a memoir buried inside a self-help book similar to “You Can’t Hurt Me”. To me, it felt like a cliche wrapped inside the inspirational quotes you see embroidered on pillows at a Christmas market. I’m happy to spend the $29 to support her work and I wish her all the success in the world. But in the end, ironically, the book left me wanting simply more.