The Women by Kristin Hannah

 

I wasn't really in too much of a hurry to read this book. However, I have been talking about it a lot as there were a couple of people at the readers retreat I went to recently who raved about it and so I moved it up the TBR list.  It also fit the theme for this month for my read on a theme book club as the theme was 1960s. I had already read one book, but I think I would surprise the group if I only turned up having read one book. Ironically, it turned out that three of us had read this book!

This book seems to be very divisive. It won the Goodreads Choice award for Historical Fiction and was nominated for and won a bunch of other awards. It was also the most reviewed book for last year's Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host. And yet, if you spend time in any historical fiction related groups you will find many people who really, really dislike it, as in with a passion! So, where did I land? I am firmly in the I loved it camp.

Frankie McGrath has led a sheltered life growing up on the island of Coronado near San Diego in a wealthy Catholic family. She has just started nursing but really, this is something to do until she meets the man of her dreams, gets married and has kids like all good Catholic girls. 

Her family is very patriotic and proud of their history of serving their country across generations. When Frankie's brother joins up to go to fight in Vietnam it is celebrated. That night, a conversation with one of her brother's friends changes her life completely when she is reminded that women can be heroes too. Frankie decides to follow in her brother's footsteps and head to Vietnam as a nurse.

To say that the conditions in Vietnam shock the sheltered young girl is an understatement, but it isn't long before Frankie finds her feet and becomes an exceptional theatre nurse under horrific circumstances, thanks in no small part to her friends Barb and Ethel. She sees a constant stream of men coming to the field hospital, many of whom will not survive, but she is also sees the suffering of the Vietnamese civilians who she also provides medical care for. They perform surgery whilst being under attack, she loses people she loves, she works herself to the point of exhaustion, and finds moments of great joy despite the adversity. 

After two years, Frankie returns home to a country that is against the war, who have been known to call returned service men things like baby killers, and to a family that is not proud of her. Suffering from what we would now easily identify as PTSD, Frankie struggles to settle back into civilian life. Even her nursing skills which have been honed under intense conditions are not recognised and she has to start her nursing career from the bottom. 

Isolated, suffering from PTSD, not sleeping, Frankie begins to spiral and soon is taking drugs and drinking way too much. She needs to find what it is that is going to centre herself and try to build a new life before she destroys herself completely. 

A while ago someone asked in a comment what the difference between a 4.5 and a 5 star rating is for me. A book doesn't have to be perfect, and this one isn't. The last chapter had me rolling my eyes at how neatly things were wrapped up. However, my response to that question was that it all comes down to the feeling I get when I close the book. If I have loved a book it will be a 4.5, but if I am completely emotionally drawn in and close the book with a contented sigh then that will be a 5. While I didn't close this book with a sigh, I did close it with tear filled eyes. Even the bloody acknowledgements made me cry!

What this book did do is make me feel....a lot. Mostly it made me feel angry. I was angry with Frankie's family, especially her father, I was angry with the system, I was angry with the men she got involved with (yes, you Rye!), and I was angry with the soldiers who were in Vietnam but wouldn't acknowledge the fact that the nurses deserved recognition too. 

It probably didn't help that recently we have been watching the Ken Burns documentary about Vietnam where the events that were happening both in Vietnam and back in the US were shown from the protests against Vietnam to the political grandstanding and so much more. That did help me with some of the events in the book. For example, at one point, Hannah mentions the Tet Offensive but I had already watched the documentary episode where this was covered. 

I have read a couple of Kristin Hannah books now with the other one being The Alice Network. I am going to go back and read her backlist if this is the kind of response that her writing can create!

I am sharing this review with the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge which I host here.

Rating 5/5