I am slowly coming to realize Kristin Hannah is my favorite author. I inhaled The Great Alone not once, but twice: both times in feverous reading rampages where I could not stop until I turned to page 545 and finally allowed myself to mourn, celebrate, and process the events of the novel. I inhaled Firefly Lane at the same addictive pace, and when the series came out on Netflix, you can bet I also binged both seasons as fast as I could. There is something about Hannah’s words which make me unable to cease my skimming until I read just one more chapter. This trend continued as I opened the first pages of The Women and was instantly sucked into 1960s California with the only escape being to continue reading.
I read Kristin Hannah’s newest novel The Women quite literally in one day: I paused to sleep and eat, but except for the most basic self-care, digested The Women in a rapid, ravenous manner. This novel is breathtaking.
The Women is a historical fiction novel based on the true experiences of female nurses during the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and 1970s. The story follows Frankie, who makes the difficult decision to enlist as an Army Nurse after her older brother also heads to Vietnam. Although she’s not in combat, Frankie’s ultimate mission is to bring honor to a family with strong military pride.
“Women can be heroes, too” is a recurring quote throughout The Women and symbolizes Frankie’s literal fight in Vietnam to be the best nurse she can be–being exposed to traumatizing and gory battle wounds and innumerous dead bodies–as well as her ongoing battle to find acceptance in herself, and gain her family’s approval as a female veteran.
The first half of the book is centered on Frankie’s hands-on medical experiences at various hospitals in Vietnam: where she performs emergency tracheostomies, attends to victims of napalm and landmines, and even visits local Vietnamese villages to offer aid to women, children, and elderly patients. Throughout this section of the novel, our beloved protagonist evolves from a wide-eyed, good-girl nurse to an intense and under-pressure jack-of-all-trades.
After the war is when Frankie’s personal troubles begin. With references to the state of the mental health system in America in the early 1970s, Kristin Hannah describes a world where feelings are not talked about, the subject of ‘Nam is avoided, and ultimately Frankie experiences symptoms of undiagnosed PTSD. As a woman who is not recognized for her overseas presence during the war, Frankie spends years with little to no support from the Veterans Association.
The Women is a tale of war, but it is also so much more. It’s a story which questions the very definition of patriotism, honor, and pride. There are themes of heartbreak, friendship, mental health, civil rights, deception, love, and so much more. When I finished this book I found myself on my bedroom floor sobbing. It was a mixture of happy tears as well as the mourning for Frankie’s trauma. If you do not read The Women by Kristin Hannah I can assure you are missing out on an awe-striking literary masterpiece.