BOOK REVIEW: The Women by Kristin Hannah

I finally read The Women by Kristin Hannah, an homage to the women who served in Vietnam. It reads fairly quickly despite its length.

It’s 1966, and Frances “Frankie” McGrath is a sheltered, innocent California girl, a “good girl,” whose parents’ plans for her are marriage, motherhood, country clubs, and maybe some volunteer work. She has an older brother, and is devoted to him. In keeping with the family expectations, he volunteers to go to Vietnam. Missing him, and wanting to get the same respect from her father that her brother gets, she signs up to be an army nurse. Her parents aren’t proud; they’re horrified.

Frankie is 20 years old and, although she has a nursing degree, she has no experience to speak of. When she arrives in Vietnam, it is to a baptism by fire. Fortunately, with the support and camaraderie of the staff there, especially two fellow nurses, she learns quickly and is soon a superbly competent surgical trauma nurse.

The harsh realities of life (and death) in Vietnam are fully explored, and are contrasted starkly with goings-on back home that Frankie learns about in letters from her mother. In country, Frankie falls in love, enjoys occasional respites with colleagues, learns to smoke and drink, and makes lifelong friends. But she also experiences the trauma and horrors of Vietnam. They are not spared the bombings and, if they venture away from camp, the threat of snipers or ambush. This part of the novel is like M*A*S*H, but in Vietnam, not Korea, seen through women’s eyes, not men’s, and without the humor.

The first part was a wrenching read, but captivating.

At the halfway mark, Frankie’s tour is done and she ships home. She arrives to a U.S.A. that has grown vehemently anti-war and anti-soldier. Her parents won’t speak of the war. It is made very clear to her that she should be ashamed of having been there. And when she reaches out for help for what we would now recognize as PTSD, she is told over and over that there were no women in Vietnam and that she doesn’t deserve resources reserved for combat veterans.

The second half of the book reads as a history lesson, as Frankie is traumatized again and again, suffering everything that nurses and returning veterans are known to have suffered and then some, until it began to feel like a checklist that needed to be completed. The plot twists were a bit too predictable. And the concluding chapters felt too preachy – even though I agree with the sermon that was preached.

So overall, I have mixed feelings about this book. The first half was riveting. The second half seemed to have an important message, but the plotting felt a bit contrived as it worked to deliver that message.