I've heard a lot of good things about this book, so I picked it up on Audible before I'd finished The Nightingale. This is what I rolled last time for an audiobook. I finished it really pretty quick for as long of a book as it is.
The Women follows the story of Frankie McGrath as she fights for her parents' approval. It starts with her father's "heroes wall" in his office: a wall of pictures depicting men in service of their country, and women getting married. When Frankie's brother leaves for war, his friend tells her "women can be heroes too." This sparks something in Frankie, and she joins the army as a nurse. She ships out to Vietnam shortly after learning of her brother's death. There, she serves in two evac hospitals, treating wounded soldiers as a surgical nurse. Frankie serves two tours in Vietnam, then returns home to find a country unwilling to recognize the service of any Vietnam vets, and especially the women.
First of all, I did like this book. It wasn't my favorite, but it was good. I definitely felt that I couldn't stop listening, and like I said, it's a pretty long book, but I got through it fairly quickly. I looked forward to reading it each day on my way home from work. So there was that.
As a character, I liked Frankie. I thought her progression from dedicated army nurse to rock bottom to surgical nurse to even rockier rock bottom was really interesting. I thought that the character development was well done, and became a very character driven story. I thought the supporting characters all stood out too. Barb and Ethel are amazing best friends who show up at exactly the right time to save Frankie. Their characters were fairly distinct (though I mixed them up sometimes) and they were interesting, well-rounded people.
I listened to Hannah's afterword / author's notes on the book, and I find myself agreeing with her. The stories of these women are not told enough. So I liked the unique perspective the book brought to history. It highlighted many things I didn't know about the Vietnam War, and the way that veterans were treated by the American people and the government on their return. I do think it's important to remember these times, these stories, and the people who fought and died for what they believe in. I don't think disagreeing with a war should lead regular citizens to mistreat the people that followed orders to fight for their country.
Let's get into some of my issues with the book. Despite the fact that I was really engaged, there were some issues that I had with the way the book was written.
I wish I could count the number of times that Frankie is described as "dead on her feet" especially in the Vietnam section. It got really repetitive. While I understand that's probably how days would have felt over there during the war, I felt that it got tiring to read. Frankie wakes up to incoming helicopters, she rushes to the OR, the operate on patient after patient, the surgeon tells her to go rest, she argues, then is convinced, then she goes to sleep, and the whole cycle repeats again. It got old after a few times through this cycle, so I was glad when Frankie's second tour was not described in great detail.
The other issue I had was that I felt like there were some historical inaccuracies or stretches. The characters can just leave their camps anytime they want. Frankie, Barb, and Ethel will just up and go to parties for people leaving, or whatever. Rye (Frankie's love interest) was just able to jump in a plane or helicopter at any time and come save her. It felt unrealistic, and was probably my biggest gripe with the start of the book. Maybe that's really how it was, but I feel like the military is supposed to be more precise and regimented than this.
When we get into part 2, I really started seeing through Hannah's foreshadowing, and it bugged me. Oh, Frankie is in love with Rye? He's gonna die. He did. Oh, there are POW camps and men in them who were presumed dead? Rye's there. He was. I was able to see through just about every major twist in the last two thirds of the book.
I feel like Hannah piles on tragedy for the sake of tragedy, not because it's all that realistic. The romance felt contrived, and I didn't really like hardly any of the men that Frankie was involved with. Plus the infidelity got annoying. Every married man chasing after Frankie? And the way she always responds to heart break was annoying. Sometimes she seems really resilient, and other times she shatters at the first sign of trouble. Along with this - the tragedies and trauma prevent Frankie from ever having any kind of deep conversations with anyone else, turning the book almost into one big miscommunication trope after another. It just got really old.
In short, I like the concept of the novel, and the story was refreshing. I love my World War II stories, but it was nice to read something else for once, and about a war that no one wants to remember. I just think I don't really vibe well with Kristin Hannah, and maybe that's part of my problem. I haven't been overly impressed with either of the books I've read by her.
I rated this book ⭐⭐⭐
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