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Y’all, I really feel like this year has involved me genuinely embracing nonfiction reads, but I’m still trying to be very limited about requesting nonfiction on Netgalley because I really do not need to be adding another genre to request given how many ARCs I have anyway. But I do have three ARCs to review for you. First up is The Deaf Girl by Abigail Heringer, which came out last Fall and I procrastinated on reading it until the start of June. Second, I have a DNF that I decided to sandwich between two books I enjoyed, so that is I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman, which comes out in July. Then third, I read Hit Girls by Nora Princiotti, which gave me more of what I actually wanted when reading Heartbreak is the National Anthem, except it covered more pop stars than just Taylor Swift. So let’s talk through these books with a little more detail, shall we?

The Deaf Girl by Abigail Heringer

Abigail Heringer is someone I know of because of her season as a contestant on The Bachelor (Matt James’s season) and her season of Bachelor in Paradise where she and Noah fell in love. I’ve been following her on Instagram since, which means I know a little more about cochlear implants than I did prior to her presence on my TV screen, but I still wouldn’t say I knew a lot before diving into this book.

I think one of the most important takeaways from this book is that Abigail is so careful to position her memoir in a very specific place. She’s very clear that she’s not sharing everyone’s experience and she’s especially not sharing the “capital D Deaf” experience. And more than that, she is careful to remind people that every disabled person has a different experience with their disability than someone else because people are individuals. Abigail drives this home by starting her story with her older sister’s story and shows how differently the two took to their cochlear implants and even how they experienced the world as they grew up.

Setting aside the disability aspect of Abigail’s memoir, I loved the end and getting to hear a little more about her experiences on The Bachelor and Bachelor and Paradise and beyond, though personally I could have used another thirty pages just on those aspects. But that’s because getting to hear about the behind the scenes of these shows that I love to watch is just so much fun.

Final thoughts, I really enjoyed this and Abigail reads the audiobook herself, which made it my favorite experience to read a memoir! So I definitely recommend if you’re intrigued about either learning more about people who have cochlear implants or you also love reality dating shows.

I Want to Burn This Place Down
by Maris Kreizman

This essay collection was very appealing to me namely because of the title because hello, that is my current mood. I had a terrible week at work, which made everything worse and I really just wanted to escape my real life rage to rage about things that are bigger than me. This essay collection apparently is about how Kreizman went from being a “good Democrat” to being actual left leaning or something like that. Ultimately, I made it 42% through this one before I had to call it a day. This book is very voice-y and maybe that will work for you. For me, I couldn’t ever find my footing. Kreizman jumps all over the place time wise, almost like vignettes, that are loosely tied together for each essay. I wanted this to feel more organized and grounded, more like Hood Feminism than just personal experiences tied together with the smallest of connections. That said, I think it will work much better for those of you who do not need things to be as structured as I sometimes do. So happy reading if you think it’s for you!

Hit Girls by Nora Princiotti

I grew up on 90s-early 2000s Country music on the radio, before getting my first albums, Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Christina Aguilera. Britney Spears was my first solo artist concert, actually. I had been to a country music festival at the tender age of like seven or eight, but Britney Spears was the first person I got to see on stage performing with set pieces and the fancy lights. I loved it. I’m also a few years older than Princiotti, which meant that every cultural touchstone she mentioned was one that I remember equally as well. We have different songs that maybe form the basis of our obsession with various stars, but neither of us remember the first time we heard Taylor Swift and we’re both sad about it because she rules large in both of our lives. But in saying all of that, what I loved about this book is that it’s a real examination of the evolution of pop music and, more specifically, how pop music changed.

It’s interesting too because I feel as though the thesis of this book is, at least in part, that we’ve lowered the strict genre guidelines in the last two decades, but then I think about Cowboy Carter and how much people resisted Beyoncé making a country album. But, as per usual, racism has a part to play. And that’s not something Princiotti shies away from, although she’s careful when she indicates if something is not within her wheelhouse to really cover. But in terms of pointing out the influence of R&B and hip hop on pop music? She covers it. In terms of talking about how the paparazzi were absolutely horrendous in the early 2000s, she makes interesting notes about how much easier it was for white celebrities to break through to be a “star” with paparazzi attention, whereas for Black artists it typically wasn’t easy. And then there’s Beyoncé.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’m just rambling through the various things that I really liked about this book, but I did enjoy it! Sometimes it felt a little more academic and dry than what you might expect, but also, I had the best time listening to the music of my tween and teen years while reading along. It was a blast. I would now like Princiotti to release an additional book covering the years of 2010-2020 and the evolution of pop music, which she does touch on in her concluding chapter. It’s just that, as per usual, I’d like more.

Closing Thoughts

Although none of these books have displaced Braiding Sweetgrass as my favorite nonfiction of the year, I really appreciated at least Hit Girls and The Deaf Girl for what they are. I love pop culture nonfiction, I’m realizing, given how much I enjoyed Disney High and now Hit Girls. But I also tend to love memoirs. What are some of your favorite books that hit on either of those categories? I’d love to know!

xx