Smashbomb

The Women

Kristin Hannah | 2024 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics

10.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Yet again, Kristin Hannah has ripped my heart out of my chest and jumped all over it. And yet again, I’m just fine with that.

Frankie McGrath volunteers to go to Vietnam as a nurse, in the hope that she’ll be put up on her fathers “Hero’s Wall”. She arrives a naive idealist, and leaves emotionally scarred with no hope of support when she gets home.

In Vietnam, Frankie meets her best friends, who will always be there for her - two equally amazing women. They help her through PTSD, the end of relationships and substance abuse. The three women join the fight for recognition of Vietnam vets - where they are repeatedly told that they couldn’t have been there.

This book is in two parts: Vietnam and its aftermath, and honestly, both halves are equally harrowing.

This is such a powerful story. A story wanting recognition for the female nurses in Vietnam. It certainly puts their experiences out there for everyone to see.

The Women will be a book that I’ll be forcing into friends hands with the promise that they’ll love it, but they’ll be traumatised (I believe I made similar warnings to friends after I read The Nightingale).