Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - The Women

Oh Kristin Hannah - why do you do this to me? 😭 What a read! #TheWomen will definitely be one of my top reads of the year. I don’t have a physical copy and I regret not purchasing this beautiful UK edition when I visited Lutyens & Rubinstein last month. I listened to the audiobook and it was fantastic. Julia Whelan’s narration was superb!!
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First and foremost, Kristin Hannah can write her tail off. She knows how to tell a good darn story. From the moment I started listening to this audiobook, I was consumed. It takes some really good writing, especially when listening to a book, for the reader to feel the true essence of the setting and time period. Kristin Hannah nails this!! Not only do you get the feeling surrounding the war but you also see how little rights women had. There were also reflection points as I was reminded that we actually smoked cigarettes on planes and in hospitals.😏 My heart ached, I teared up, I was angry, I yelled at several of the characters and laughed a little. My emotions were all over the place but when the story ended I felt thankful. Thankful for women who time and time again show up and serve in many capacities!! ⁣⁣⁣⁣
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“There were no women in Vietnam.” Imagine serving as a U.S. combat nurse in the Vietnam War and coming home to a country who completely ignores your existence or service in the war. This is the story about the women, the combat nurses who served during the Vietnam War. Frankie, oh Frankie. I loved Frances ‘Frankie’ McGrath’s vulnerability and spirit. She was human in every way possible. I yelled at her a couple of times. More than anything, I loved her friendship with Barb and Ethel. This story is so well crafted. I’m still in my feelings. If y’all have read this one, I need to talk to someone about this book. ⁣⁣⁣⁣
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Expect to see a book & wine pairing (or a gin cocktail) when I get a copy of this book! ⁣⁣⁣ Additional thoughts continued in comments. ⁣
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I know this story is about the women who served during this time but this book stirred my emotions in so many ways. Particularly it made me think about my father and his 30+ years in the Army. I had the absolute best relationship with my dad. We talked about a lot of things but one thing he would never (and I mean never!) talk about was the Vietnam War. When he passed away in 2013, I remember going through his things with my sister and we came across several service medals that we never knew about. The ones that instantly caught my eye were the Bronze Star Medal and the Vietnam Service Medal. It was the strangest feeling but in that moment, as I was reading the certificates, it was if all of my questions were answered. I was asking my dad to relive and tell me stories from a painful and traumatic period in his life. A young Black man fighting for his country in a foreign land, (it’s safe to say he had never been out of the country before going to Vietnam) and yet he didn’t have basic human rights in the segregated America he was fighting for. ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
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I remember the first time we visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As a young girl not fully understanding what was going on, I watched my parents find the names of classmates and family friends, and use a penicl to rub their names onto a sheet of paper. As a young man, my dad loved taking photos. He has an amazing photo album collection that spans decades. Now that I’m older, I realize that some of his stories were told through photos and not words. There are days when I drive past the memorial and my understanding deepens. 🥹⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣

Content Warnings

kshertz's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Wow this book was incredible. Highlighting one woman’s journey through Vietnam as a nurse and coming back to the world where no one wants to acknowledge you. It was beautifully done and made me cry and gasp and giggle. It was such a good mix of history and fiction. Highly recommend

Content Warnings

velvetreads_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

molsreads's review

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challenging emotional sad slow-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

nc_unknown_user's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m still trying to collect my thoughts here, so bear with me. I also wrote a much better review directly after finishing the book, but my app glitched and it is now gone forever. I’m still not over that nor this book. Nothing I can do to bring back my first take review, but I’m already looking forward to re-reading the book again and again. Anyway, on to the review…

This was such a phenomenal book in so many ways. Mostly because it feels like such an important topic to acknowledge. It’s heartbreaking to think of how the veterans of Vietnam were treated. It’s especially heartbreaking to think that the brave women who served during that war were forgotten and gaslit about their experiences. I can only imagine how isolating that must have felt. Especially in a time where PTSD (and mental health in general) was not as understood. And even though this is a work of fiction, I feel the author took great care in crafting a story that was representative of true experiences. I can only imagine the amount of work that goes into doing a story like this justice. She did an amazing job, in my humble opinion.

I know there is nothing that can be done now to change the many wrongs that have happened in our country’s history, but I hope acknowledging the stories of the heroes that have helped shape the land we call home will help us to do better going forward. They all deserve to have their stories told and heard by the masses. The period described here was such a dark era that left so many to feel abandoned and discarded. I wish we could've respected, recognized, and honored these men and women as they should have been from day one. Hopefully these stories can help us never forget nor make that mistake again. The government is quick to send people into battle on their behalf, but seem to discard them when they return broken from the experience. I hope we all can find ways to help those in need at every level and books like these seem to help spark that conversation.

I will say as far as the story itself goes, it was a lot. Obviously. Many Hannah books have a dark tone and are rather heavy material. Which isn’t always a good time to read but she does well to give bits of hope to hang onto. I will say the many love stories that managed to spring up so often were a bit of reach but hey, war makes people more spontaneous and trauma bonds are real. It wasn’t completely unbelievable. The main character is also young and what may be thought of as “love” at that age (especially in the midst of highly emotional experiences) is not true love, which I believe is to be understood as things progress. There seemed to be a lot that happened in very short spans of time and it was often hard to wrap my head around where I was in the timeline. Like how much time had passed. But again, not completely unrealistic… just a lot. I think reading again will help me wrap my head around all of that better as I have a general idea of the whole picture going in next time. This isn’t a story that has some major happily ever after with a pretty bow on top vibes, however it doesn’t leave you feeling completely destroyed as you may think it could at certain points when reading. All in all, it is a very solid book and one I would recommend and read again (which are not things I tend to do often.)

Thank you to the author, the narrator, the production crew, and everyone else who worked so hard to make this amazing story come to life. Thank you to the men and women (especially!) who have served our country and have shared experiences we may never be able to fully understand. Even when this country seems to be going to crap, it is the people who are willing to sacrifice so much for what they believe in and what is truly the greater good that give me hope. I look forward to learning more about the stories of the women in Vietnam and finding ways I can help where I can going forward.

Content Warnings