You may know Abigail from The Bachelor franchise, as the first deaf contestant to appear on the show, but I’d highly recommend this book even if you’ve never heard of her before! I loved listening to this memoir and hearing about her experience growing up with a cochlear implant. She’s a delight and it was eye-opening to me to learn about her experience navigating the world with a disability. Of course, she covers her journey on The Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise, and meeting her fiancé, Noah, too.

This kind of book is exactly why I like to read - it helps me understand other people’s experiences of the world. At 5 hours, it went by fast, plus I got a little behind the scenes of my favorite reality TV show. I’d definitely recommend this one!

Thank you NetGalley and RBmedia for the free copy in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fun quick read/listen and I loved hearing it directly from Abigail! I’m a big Bachelor fan and loved watching her journey when it aired on television. I also have a sister with hearing loss so her representation on one of our family’s favorite shows was really cool. So hearing about her and her family’s journey was really special. Thanks so much for sharing your story and heart and who you are, Abigail! And thank you so much to NetGalley for the ability to listen to the audiobook!

Thanks to RBMedia and NetGalley for access to the audiobook of The Deaf Girl in exchange for my honest opinion.
Matt James' season of The Bachelor (filmed and aired during 2020) was the first season that I watched, and I remember seeing Abigail tell Matt about her cochlear implant on the first episode.
While I've read a few novels with deaf characters, I had not read a memoir by a deaf person. It was educational, learning about how controversial cochlear implants can be in the community. Abigail did a great job narrating, as she tells about the positives and negatives of growing up with a disability and how others perceived her. As a teacher, it was particularly hard to read about the high school teachers she had that did not do what they could to help her, due to the minor inconvenience to them. I hope I haven't ever made a student feel that way!
Reading about Abigail's college experience, and how supported she felt by her small college community, on the other hand, made me really happy. If you're a Bachelor superfan looking for more information about behind the scenes, there is a little of that, but it isn't really a focus. And very little is included about Abigail's Bachelor in Paradise experience. However, I do recommend checking this out - especially to hear Abigail's voice telling her story in the audiobook.

To start off, I have never seen an episode of The Bachelor, or any of the shows in that franchise. I, however, am always interested in memoirs from people in the disability and Deaf communities, so I was eager to listen to this audiobook.

By and large, I thought it was lovely. The author and her sister both classify themselves as “little d deaf” and both received cochlear implants as young children, though they had very different experiences getting used to it, and navigating the world. I liked both parts of the book - pre and during/post Bachelor. Abigail is reflective and open and did a great job narrating. The super raw emotion in her voice when sharing about the passing of a grandparent was really powerful. I also really valued her feelings and reflection on tokenism and accessibility!

Overall, this was a great listen and I recommend it!

As someone who use to watch all of the Bachelor/Bachelorette shows, I was interested to pick this one up because I really liked Abigail on Matt’s season. I was happy that this book wasn’t only a focus on the experience of the show, but also how she grew up and her family. There is still plenty about the show and what happened after, but the real focus is her experience with deafness, and how her disability has evolved who she is as she has grown from a child into her adult self. I appreciated that she also included how her experience wasn’t exactly like her sister’s experience with cochlear implants, and that she tackled the stigma of disability being a “one size fits all” narrative that our society often labels disabled people as when it comes to their lived experiences.

I listened to the audiobook, which she narrates herself. If you are a fan of the show, or are looking to learn more about experiences with cochlear implants, this is a great one to pick up.

Thanks to the publisher for the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Loved listening to Abigail's story! So positive and insightful. I've loved her since we met her on The Bachelor. Her narration is great and really adds something to the book.

This was a great story about life with a cochlear implants. Abigail reads the book which I believe make to story more relatable. I did not know much about her journey on the bachelor and I enjoyed the insight. Abigail talks about capital D Deaf and lower case d deaf. I did find it interesting on where she felt she falls in the Deaf culture. This book is also a great sister story.

I was so excited when I saw this book pop up on NetGalley! I was a huge fan of Abigail's when she was on The Bachelor / BIP. I love that she was able to give us an inside look on what it was like growing up and navigating life with a disability. In my life, I've never even met a deaf person so I found this book extremely interesting and eye opening. I feel like even if you have never watched The Bachelor, this is still a really good memoir to pick up. I always love listening to the audiobook version of memoirs and actually hearing the person share their own experience. I could hear the emotion in Abigail's voice the whole way through and it was very touching.

thank you to netgalley, rbmedia and the author, abagail heringer for the copy of the book in exchange for a review.
i feel extremely lucky to get to read this fantastic and new book. going in, i haven’t watched much of the bachelor, and do not watch abagail’s season. i had not heard of a deaf contestant on the show or it would have peaked my interest long ago.
i do however, like to consume disabled media as someone who is disabled themselves with a different disability than the author. i liked the themes that were explored within this book. discussions on love, conflicting feelings about accomadations, grappling with how people will perceive them as someone openly disabled.
the author maintains a positive but realistic look at adversity, exploring life as someone with a cochlear implant and being seen for the person they are aside from the rest.
i liked the pieces about her college experience and moving in with her roommate. the disclosure to positive experiences in college vs high school was extremely fun to listen to.
i listened to the audiobook read by the author and i love these books. the author reading the book adds so much and this is no exception. having an audiobook available also makes it accessible for a variety of disabilities.
i learned a lot about cochlear implants- i had not thought about the batteries and how in some instances it isn’t preference for the wearer or that sometimes issues with the cochlear implants can be isolating like she explained on a few of her dates or in the auditorium.
this was of course a great read with a disabled author but was a great memoir regardless.
this is a must read.

Thank you #Netgalley for this advanced read!

Loved listening to Abigail share her journey. She discusses her family, how hearing loss affected not only her but her sister and how her mother and grandparents were strong allies on their behalf. It was interesting to learn more about the thoughts she experienced during the bachelor and things you may not necessarily think about as a hearing person. Specifically while in the hotel leading up to her bachelor stay and the pressure of relying on others to alert her of situations. Also loved hearing about the bachelor and bachelor in paradise experiences which ultimately led her to Noah.

Great non fiction read for me
As I continue to learn what type of non fiction I like i am understanding that stories by people with real world experiences always resonate with me.
I appreciate the honesty of this book.
So much to be learned from!

Omg I fell in love with Abigail during Matt’s season of the bachelor, and her book made me love her even more!

I truly love how she leaned in and told the hard truths about what life is like for someone with a significant disability and how ableism flat out sucks and impacts every part of her life, and how she felt not accepted in the hearing world, and also ostracized by adult members of the Deaf community as a teen for having cochlear implants.

I love how she continued to bring the story back to the fact that this is just one story, and when you have met one deaf person, you have met one deaf person.

As someone who works in employment advocacy space for pwd I also really appreciated her sharing about her experiences with work and wanting to not be a bother and not addressing her accommodations needs and as a result the impact in the workplace and just how important self-advocacy has been for her to succeed whether she wanted to or not.

Thanks a million times to the publisher for my gifted audiobook copy in exchange for my honest review!

I've never watched the Bachelor, so I didn't know anything about Abigail Heringer before reading this memoir, but I really enjoyed this memoir!

Most memoirs I've read in this space have been from someone who identifies as Deaf, but Abigail's story was a good reminder how important representation is for those who are part of the lowercase "d" deaf community. In particular, Abigail's story about her experience with a Deaf ASL teacher was heartbreaking.

This book goes into some of the nuances of the differences between the d/Deaf community, but at a high level, how someone identifies tends to come with how they interact with the hearing world. Abigail has cochlear implants and speaks, so she identifies as lowercase "d" deaf.

As someone who's never watched the Bachelor but understands the concept, I found the chapters about her experience on the Bachelor fascinating! If you're only interested in this for the Bachelor behind-the-scenes tidbits, know that this memoir focuses more on Abigail's life and the Bachelor-specific chapters are a relatively small part of the book.

“I’m going to be reading your lips a lot tonight, because I’m deaf. But thankfully, you’ve got beautiful lips, so I can’t complain.” These first words of the first contestant on season 25 of The Bachelor not only made a rose-worthy first impression on Matt but made an unprecedented impression on the nation. There was something different about Abigail Heringer that set her apart from every woman who had ever been on The Bachelor: Abigail Heringer was the first deaf contestant on the Bachelor.

“I’d never seen someone like me on reality TV.” This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to fall in love while inviting the rest of the world to listen in on life with cochlear implants. “Even if it helps one family, it’s worth it.” But was the only reason she remained on the show to serve as a token of deaf representation. And when she arrived in Paradise, were the other contestants just chalking her up as the deaf girl?

Abigail’s story is not hers alone: The Deaf Girl is a tale of two sisters. Her sister Rachel could not hear, but she was also happy. Through Rachel’s example, Abigail discovered that those truths could coexist; but disability doesn’t follow patterns of expectations. Abigail distinguishes between the Deaf community, who use ASL to communicate with sign, and the deaf community, who use cochlear implants to communicate with speech. The Deaf community doesn’t consider hearing loss as a disability to be cured but a culture to identify with and a language to embrace. Abigail was living in limbo, straddling the world of the Deaf and the hearing belonging to neither.

Everyone has a place in the world; this was always meant to be hers. The Deaf Girl is the story of Abigail’s journey to embrace all facets of her identity. For years, she resisted the stigma of being labeled “the deaf girl,” fearing that it would overshadow her individuality and reduce her to a single aspect of her identity. But in this book, she flips the script and uses the label as her title. The Deaf Girl is a universal manifesto to own your identity and empower others to embrace their truth, to face adversity head on and carry on courageously whether in the halls of your high school or on national TV.

This was such an enjoyable book to listen to. Abigail did such an excellent job sharing her story with the world. It was so awesome getting to know more about her life and experiences being deaf and navigating her cochlear implant journey. I took 2 years of ASL in high school and my teacher was very similar to hers. He was Deaf and you could definitely get the sense of his distaste for those who chose to get a cochlear implant. It made me feel a lot of feelings for those like Abigail who aren’t totally accepted in the Deaf community or the hearing community, but following along her journey you can see how much self acceptance she has now. The book also reminded me to be comfortable in my own skin and that is the best way to find your people. I feel like the book was so informative and allowed for me to have deeper conversations with a young woman who works at my go-to lunch spot who has two cochlear implants. I was able to chat with her about how I never realized how hard it must be, and commended her for having two implants and how hard that adjustment must have been. She opened up to me about how she can hear any little sound that hearing people don’t notice such as a fan or other things, and how she misses a lot of conversations because of someone is standing in just the wrong place she had no clue they were having a full conversation with her, as well as all of the headaches that can happen when she wears them for too long and how she needs to take breaks. I just felt like this book opened up a lot of conversations we otherwise wouldn’t have had and I’m grateful for having my eyes opened so much because of this book! Abigail did such a great job narrating her book and I felt like a friend was telling me her story. It was fast paced and very fluid!
Thank you to RBmedia and NetGalley for this audiobook.

I have heard about Abigail's experience on the Batchelor so this was such a motivational and inspiring listen to learn more about her background and her journey.

I really enjoyed listening to Abigail talk about life and experiences as a hearing impaired person. I think her narrating her own book made it just that more impactful. I enjoyed watching her and Noah on Bachelor in Paradise and it was fun to listen to her talk about that and how they came back together. They sound like such a cute couple!

If you enjoy nonfiction, then I definitely recommend listening to this memoir! Abigail’s story is really thought provoking!

I was not familiar with Abigail Heringer prior to reading this book. I’ve never watched the Bachelor or Bachelor in Paradise. Despite this, Abigail’s story was an interesting and enjoyable read. It was great to learn about the deaf and Deaf communities, the difference in beliefs about the use of cochlear implants in those communities, and Abigail’s personal experiences navigating her life from early age through the Bachelor. Thank you for sharing your story Abigail and educating me on deafness!

Thank you to Sourcebooks, Abigail Heringer, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was a fan of Abigail from the Bachelor and was so excited to see an advance copy of her book, "The Deaf Girl." Abigail begins with her and her sister's childhoods navigating deafness. I really enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about her life and her disability. I truly learned so much about the challenges of communicating as a deaf person, her challenges with schooling related to it. I naively thought that a cochlear implant solved all problems and was very mistaken. I wasn't aware of the challenges it presented, as well as the controversy around cochlear implants in the deaf community. This book really opened my eyes up to the challenges that those with cochlear implants and hearing disabilities face every day.

I always found Abigail to be so sweet, and this book confirmed my feelings about her. I liked getting more background about her time on the Bachelor and Bachelor in Paradise and meeting Noah.

Overall, this was a quick, fun listen that also educated me about the challenges of being deaf, even with a cochlear implant. I am a bigger fan of Abigail than ever - but think this is a great listen even if you aren't familiar with her time on the Bachelor franchises.

I hadn't watched The Bachelor/The Bachelorette/Bachelor in Paradise in yearssss (for fans, since Arie Luyendyk Jr's season) so I didn't know of Abigail Heringer going into her memoir. And truthfully, I was most excited about the BTS info on the franchise that she might spill. <b> This book - and Abigail - are so so so so so so much more than that.</b>

It seems to me that she has accomplished everything she's set out to - and then some. The education on cochlear implants and the deaf (and uppercase D, Deaf) community was provided beautifully. For something so abstract (to me) to be grasped so clearly thanks to her words, left me in awe.

(more to come but I didn't want to forget what I'd written so far lol)

{Thank you bunches to NetGalley, Abigail Heringer and Sourcebooks for the Audiobook in exchange for my honest review!}