[1] Following on her 2014 memoir, Redefining Realness, which described Mock's childhood and adolescence, Surpassing Certainty deals with her early adulthood.

Published June 13, 2017 by the Atria imprint of Simon & Schuster, Surpassing Certainty is Mock's second memoir, following her 2014 New York Times bestseller Redefining Realness.

[2] The book's title is an allusion to Audre Lorde, who wrote, "And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth.

[4] Writing in The New York Times, Jennifer Finney Boylan described Surpassing Certainty as "position[ing] its story within a larger history of a struggle for human rights.

But Mock’s book is also a work of the heart, much of it focusing on the dissolution of her first marriage, and her journey from a Honolulu strip club to an editor at People magazine.