okayjessie 's review for:

The Women by Kristin Hannah

4.0

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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There were aspects of this book I really loved, and they were strong enough that they largely outweighed my criticisms, but not completely. The writing was captivating, the descriptions of trauma and PTSD were compelling, and the characters each gave you reasons to root for them. 

However, the book was brought down by one full star for me because it felt like the character development all happened off-screen. The book includes many time skips, some scenes jumping ahead by months and others by years. The author assumes we will just fill in the blanks about the development and growth that happens to our characters over that time, without giving us enough substantive scenes to make those changes believable. 

For example, when Frankie first starts as a nurse in Vietnam, she is unprepared and floundering by the challenge it presents. We see her work her way up to Surgical Nurse, which feels like genuine character growth, but that is truthfully the only time I felt that way.

Frankie's 'badass' surgical skills, her friendships with Ethel and Barb, and especially her recovery at the end of the book, all felt unearned because they happened offscreen. Frankie spends two years in Virginia trying to heal and spending time with her best friends and are privy to almost none of it?

For a book who's central theme revolves around friendship, I did not feel like the friendship was compelling enough, as we are largely told rather than shown the depth of Frankie's friendship. 

Additionally, the latter half of this book felt like torture porn to an extent that was almost comical. It was as if everything bad that could ever happen to someone happened to Frankie.

Over the course of ~100 pages, Frankie struggles with severe PTSD, grief, unplanned pregnancy, a miscarriage, a broken engagement, adultery, drug and alcohol addiction, DUI, and attempted suicide.

It got to the point where I wanted to stop reading, it was that bad. The book did turn around, but I didn't feel as though the end was as satisfying as it could be, because again most of the character development for Frankie happens off-screen and is told to us.