Review by jennifermreads - The Women

jennifermreads 's review for:

The Women by Kristin Hannah

4.5

challenging emotional reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Prior to writing this review, I saw a post on Instagram with the title slide “What to read instead of The Women?” Intrigued, I thumbed through the rest of the slides in the post and read the caption. Essentially, the criticism, and reason to not read The Women was that the Vietnam War was once again being objectified by whites and being the Vietnamese were “used as plot devices rather than given names, agency, or full characterizations.” The post’s author then said, “Sure, that may not be the goal of the book” and went on to talk about how we, as readers, should not always read historical fiction from the White perspective. I 100% agree that expanding your reading is wise and that remembering that our history has been white-washed is imperative.

I do want to state emphatically: It was not the intention of The Women to give the Vietnamese perspective nor tell the story from that viewpoint. Kristin Hannah did an incredible job conveying the life, through the war and beyond, of Vietnam nurses and female war veterans. I have always found her characters multi-faceted and so well-formed that they could walk off the page and into my life. Over and over, I made notes to myself like “Did I know that?” or “How could I not remember that?” or “SERIOUSLY! They aren’t veterans because they didn’t hold a gun?!” I cried, I laughed, I raged, I cheered, and I was exhausted because of all that emotion. And I was only reading about the women vets, not living their lives.

Once again, I credit Kristin Hannah for using her incredible historical fiction to make me eager to know more, for growing my TBR as I added books so that I can expand my knowledge of a piece of history I thought I knew. And, yes, I added some books from that Instagram post, too, including Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai about the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

Content Warnings