I do not have enough words to describe how amazing and essential this women's fiction/historical fiction novel is, dealing with the 1960's, the Vietnam War, and the nurses who served. The unforgettable characters will stay with me for a long, long time. Very highly recommended.

“Women can be heroes.”
Kristin Hannah is my favorite author, no one else can make me sob like a baby while wanting to take on the world. The Women takes a deep dive into life around the Vietnam War and what a woman nurse experienced while she was there as well as her experience once she returned from war. All of Kristin Hannah’s books pull at your heartstrings and this book is no different. The emotion I felt while reading this was different that that of The Four Winds or The Nightingale, it was anger. I was so angry for Frankie, the main character, as well as all the military personnel that were mistreated once they arrived home, and the women that according to everyone never served. My heart broke for her as she struggled to find her footing in a brand-new world. This book is another masterpiece, and I am grateful to have been gifted a copy by NetGalley and the publisher!

Written by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kristin Hannah this engrossing page-turner takes us back to 1965. In a world torn by war a young woman joins the Army Nurse Corp. She is faced with not just the realities of war but the chaos of coming home to a changed world. THE WOMEN addresses the contrast between expectations when signing up for service and the grim realities at the front. Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s experience both during the worth and it's aftermath including dealing with PTSD is ey opening. This is a story of patriotism, bravery, strength, sacrifice and friendship.
Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a digital review copy of this amazing book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I have the absolute pleasure to see @kristinhannahauthor speak last week about her latest book, The Women. She had been one of my favorite authors since I read Winter Garden way back in 2010. I really enjoyed getting to hear about her writing process and how she became an author. But I especially loved her personal connection to the Vietnam era that inspired her to write this novel.

The Women follows Frankie, a young, naive woman who wants to make her family proud to become a nurse in the army and serve in the Vietnam war. She is an excellent nurse and feels it’s her calling to signup for a second tour. When this is over, she heads home as a war hero. But she arrives back in California to a much different world. She’s disrespected and treated poorly after she sacrificed her life for her country. She’s repeatedly told that there were no women in Vietnam.

Due to the atrocities she saw while she was “in country” she develops what is now commonly known as has PTSD. It wasn’t treated or even diagnosed in the 1970s. The book goes in depth to show what a soldier really goes through after returning to civilian life.

This is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read and I was truly fascinated with the Vietnam era. Kristin is a tremendous writer that makes you feel like you were right there in Frankie’s surgical room or drinking with Barb and Ethel at the O Club. This is also a time period I feel is often overlooked in high school history classes so it was good to learn more about this lack in my own knowledge.

This is a must read for any and all people. Thank you to @stmartinspress for my gifted ebook and I will treasure my autographed copy I received while attending Kristin’s event.

First time trying I could not get into the story but after reading all the glowing reviews and gave it another try and I have to admit I gave up to early. The story unfolds with many unexpected twists and the character grew on me and the history part of it was definitely poignant and important.

I almost feel as if I volunteered for Vietnam as an Army nurse! As a first-time reader of Kristen Hannah, I can’t compare this to her other books, but I was thoroughly involved in her storytelling during the first half of the book, from the moment she arrives until she returns home. The military bases and hospital units, the personnel, and the action came alive through Hannah’s descriptions. Memories of the Vietnam era came back to me as she related events that had actually happened.
As one who usually reads much more crime fiction than women’s fiction, however, I was less engaged throughout scenes of family interactions and romantic relationships. The sheer number of coincidences and unexpected developments at timed resembled Freida McFadden’s plot twists! I waited a few days to review the book, though, to reflect. In the end, I decided The Women tells a realistic coming-of-age story of those difficult times. The author has packed a lot of history into her saga.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Kristin Hannah is a no-brainer, with interesting and captivating stories spanning her career. This book is no different and an absolute MUST-read.

I have read several of Kristin’s other books and loved them, but unfortunately this one just wasn’t for me but that doesn’t mean it you won’t love it! Spoilers ahead so read at your own risk!

Here’s why I personally wasn’t a fan:

• The love interests felt like cardboard characters. I wasn’t invested in any of them and honestly when two of them came back to life it felt predictable. I might have rolled my eyes.

• Pacing was good for the first half, but the second half dragged and I struggled to keep interest.

• I went back and forth between loving/hating Frankie, but not in an endearing way which made it hard to enjoy the book overall.

Huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

This novel is what Kristin Hannah does best, takes a moment in history that you may know a little or a lot about and makes the reader care deeply about the characters and the outcome of the story. Vietnam is the war no one wants to think about it, even for readers like me who were born after the war's conclusion, which is likely the reason the number of Vietnam historical fiction novels pale in comparison to the WWII ones.

Frances McGarth is a young fresh-faced nursing school graduate who decides to join U.S. Army as a nurse after the loss of her brother. Frances is a privileged Californian from a wealthy family who experiences extreme culture shock once arriving in Vietnam, but soon makes friends with fellow nurses, Barb & Ethel. The novel follows both Frances's experiences as a combat nurse on the front line as well as her struggles as she returns home.

The Women also addresses the divide between what the government told the public about Vietnam and and the truth about stark losses of battles and people. This novel is both poetic, but straight forward especially in the language expressed by the characters. Similarly, it has vibrant descriptions of Vietnam with its lush landscapes which strongly contrasts with the reality of war.

Hannah encourages the reader, as she describes in the book, to hate the war, but to love the warriors that served. This is not a novel that ends tied up with a bow, but there is satisfaction in the ending.

This book may turn out to be my best book of 2024 and it is only February as I read it.

5 stars! Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for letting me check out this book! I will post reviews on post this review on Goodreads, Bookbub, Amazon & Barnes & Noble.

This book sent me right back to my teen years when the nightly news was filled with the fighting in Viet Nam. It was a scary time when friends had older siblings who shipped out when their draft numbers came up. We heard so much about our fighting men....but nothing about the women who also served. Kristin Hannah does a fabulous job describing the scenes and the fast-moving, wearying pace the doctors, nurses, and corpsmen endured in every mass causality situation. I could hardly put the book down.

Our sheltered upper middle class main character, Frankie, is very close to her older brother, but she has a difficult relationship with her parents. She knows that she is expected to marry well and give them grandchildren if she hopes to have their respect. Yet, her father has a heroes wall and is anxious to see his son's photo there. When her brother's friend remarks that women can be heroes, too, Frankie dares to see herself in that role.

What follows is her time in the Army Nurse Corp medical units she is assigned to. We get a front row seat to Frankie's friendships, romance, and patients as she grows from an unskilled to a combat nurse. A moving experience. And then, Frankie goes home only to be met with spitting anti-war protesters. The second part of The Women deals with her inability to fit back into her pre-service life. It is crushing to watch her face the same difficulties as the men, yet have no access to resources to help her.

Kristin Hannah is a favorite author because she is not afraid to delve into the tough subjects. She takes her readers along on the emotional journey that portrays our country during a dark hour. Her blending of historical facts with her fictional characters is a seamless story that needed telling. This is a story that will stay with you a long time.
Thank you #TheWomen #NetGalley #StMartin'sPress for the EARC.

Until the following items are met by the SMP team, I will be withholding any promotion or review of any St. Martin's Press titles (including SMP Romance and Wednesday Book titles):

1. Address and denounce the Islamophobia/racism from your employee.
2. Offer tangible steps for how you're going to mitigate the harm this employee caused.
3. Address how moving forward, you will support and protect your Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab readers, influencers, and authors in addition to your BIPOC readers, influencers, and authors.

Good lord was I so excited to get an ARC of this baby. Kristen Hannah is hands down one of my favorite authors so to be able to get my hands on this before it released was just the best! This story takes place during the time of the Vietnam War and helps to shed some light on the women who served and their contribuion to the war. In Frankie's parents house is a wall of pictures of all the men in the McGrath family who have served and are heroes. Frankie decides she wants to help make the world a better place, so she follows in her brother's footsteps and joins the Army as a nurse. She is shipped off to serve in Vietnam where she first hand witnesses the horrors of war. Serving her country was hard, but coming back home to society is harder. I could truly feel the shame and frustration Frankie had as she kept slipping deeper and deeper into despair and depression. This book is a tough read, but wow what a story. If you're a fan Kristen Hannah I would highly recommend this book, she truly never disappoints. Thank you to NetGalley for the chance to read and review! AND thank you to all those who have served our country or are currently serving!

BOOK: The Women
AUTHOR: Kristin Hannah
PUB DATE: 2/6/24 by St. Martin's Press
PAGES: 480
RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
GENRE: Historical Fiction

A BIG “Thank You” to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for gifting me this advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

REVIEW: Kristin Hannah has done it again! She’s gone back in time and brought to life the harrowing experiences of serving in a war (specifically Vietnam) and focused on how women in particular came to the aid of our country by putting their lives on the line while providing medical assistance. I didn’t want this book to end and had to force myself to put it down at night. I found myself thinking about this book for days after, & I even rewatched the movie, Born on the Fourth of July since I hadn’t seen it since I was in middle school. This is a beautiful testament to the nurses that went to war and saw the inexplainable. Their lives were changed, and they fought hard (alongside men) to bring an end to the deadly Vietnam war. This will most definitely make my top 10 if not top 5 books this year, no question!

Pro:
* M*A*S*H feeling
* “Can’t they support the warriors and hate the war?”
* Very engaging depth of character development
* Following one character closely allows Hannah to cover a lot of ground historically
Con:
* Falls into predictable trope sometimes

Thank you to Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press , and NetGalley for an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

In school, I didn't learn very much about the Vietnam War, possibly because I'm Gen-X. I certainly didn't know anything about women serving in the war as nurses and how they would have been treated when they returned. I found this book to be an illuminating gut punch. I love when I learn something from what I read but Kristin Hannah always delivers an emotionally impactful story as well. This one reminds me of Home Front and while The Nightingale is still my favorite of her books, The Women is right up there and it's not a book I will soon forget. I think it would be a great pick for book discussion groups.

The Women kept me up til five a.m.!! Its raw and beautiful, fused with the innocent vibes of the 60s and 70s, and at its heart, there is a story of fateful choices and finding your way back after you’ve been through hell. The story is set in SoCal and Vietnam, centering on the nurses who served their country.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is one of the BEST historical fiction books I have ever read. Period. Kristin Hannah is an author I have not read much from, but this book has put her at the very top of my list. Incredibly well-researched, written with so much nuance and heart, this book grips you from the start and doesn't let go.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Vietnam War, historical fiction, or books that will keep a grip on you long after the last page.

5 stars.

I absolutely adored this book. I loved reading a Historical Fiction that takes place in more uncommon time periods. The characters were great, the details about the experiences were so vivid, and I loved Frankie’s journey. Kristin Hannah never misses!

Kristin Hannah has always been a must-read for me and I didn't think anything would top The Nightingale, but.....along came The Women. Hannah has hit it out of the park with this historical fiction about the female nurses of the Vietnam War, what they endured while in the war and what they faced for years after their return to the US. While I was engrossed in Frankie's story, from her teenage years in Coronado, to her time in Vietnam, to the adult years she spent back in the States, I also learned so much about this topic and have been given the spark to research more. This is an absolute must-read and is the one book I've most shared with my fellow adult readers in the weeks since I finished the e-ARC.

LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one! My favorite Kristin Hannah book in a while. Although this one has similar elements to all of her other books (i.e. heartbreak), this was less all out devastating than The Four Winds was to me and had more of an element of hope. This made me reinvigorated to read her books again!