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From the publisher:

From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah’s The Women―at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets―and becomes one of―the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

“Hannah again shines her light on overlooked women in history” ―People Magazine (Book of the Week)

“Hannah is in top form here… Hannah’s real superpower is her ability to hook you along from catastrophe to catastrophe, sometimes peering between your fingers, because you simply cannot give up on her characters. She gathers women into the (Vietnam) experience with moving conviction.” ―The New York Times

Fans of women’s historicals will enjoy this magnetic wartime story.” ―Publishers Weekly

“a moving, gripping tale that pays tribute to the under-appreciated skill and courage of combat nurses.” —Booklist, starred review

https://amzn.to/48gaUb8

I started reading Kristin Hannah back in the last century when she was writing women’s fiction or domestic fiction. She was always a popular author, but became a mega-best-selling author with The Nightingale, historical fiction about two sisters during World War II that stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for an incredible 58 weeks. That was followed by The Four Winds, another historical novel, this one set during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. This new one, The Women, is about the nurses who served during Vietnam, what they went through, what they returned to, and how they survived.

The story is based around our protagonist, Frances McGrath, who goes by Frankie. It is the 1960’s, the start of the Vietnam War, and Frankie’s brother has just enlisted. Theirs is a military family, with the exception of their father, who was 4F. They live in a wealthy enclave in California, and Frankie was brought up to be a wife. She attended Catholic schools throughout her life; she became a nurse, one of the three acceptable women’s careers (secretary, teacher, nurse.) Shortly after she graduates, she decides to follow her brother to Vietnam. As proud of her brother as her parents were, they are horrified by Frankie volunteering and, in fact, lie to their friends about where she is.

Hannah brings the Vietnam War and the role combat nurses played into sharp focus. The horrors of war play out in the MASH unit where she is first assigned, followed by a stint on the front lines. Yet when she realizes she needs help after she returns, the VA tells her there were no women in Vietnam, and only combat veterans are entitled to any kind of help.

The first half of the book or so is about Frankie’s experiences in the war, from her first day when she is told not to salute as “Charlie” likes to kill officers, to the married men who want her, to the two women she serves with who become her closest friends. The second half of the book is about reentry into the “real world”, a civilization that spit on returning veterans, even the women. Frankie turns to alcohol and drugs and eventually gets the help she needs, but it is a long, difficult road to get there. I really loved the ending – instead of everything tied up neatly, we see progress made, both for Frankie and all Vietnam veterans, and the hope of a happy ending for Frankie.

There are so many important themes here, from war to racism to alcoholism and other addictions, and family discordance, and reading groups will have much to discuss. I lived through most of this through elementary school and junior high, but Hannah took me deeper into Vietnam than I’ve been since Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, which I’ve always considered to be the essential read of the Vietnam War. The Women is also an essential read and the first book to be guaranteed a place on my best books of the year list. While it was gut-wrenching at times, it is also poignant, provocative, and too important to be ignored. This is the kind of book that makes me glad I have this platform so I can encourage people to read it. I hope you love it as much as I do.

2/2024 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah. St. Martin’s Press (February 6, 2024). ISBN: 978-1250178633. 480p.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2024 at 9:00 AM and is filed under Book Reviews, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.