Phenomenal. This is Kristin Hannah at her best, AND historical fiction at its best. Through reading The Women, I learned a lot about the war in Vietnam, and I also experienced a moving story of a woman growing and dealing with intense trauma, paradoxically thriving in war and falling apart in the face of everyday life.

I don’t want to summarize the plot as that’s been done plenty, and I definitely don’t want to spoil anything. I’ll just say, read this book at your first opportunity.

Thank you Kristin Hannah, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for providing this ARC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Women was an absolutely incredible book! The story revolves around the main character, Frances, who is a nurse who volunteers to go to Vietnam. The storyline hooked me from the beginning, and I was completely engrossed in the plot! I read 95% of the book in one sitting and it was totally worth being exhausted the next day.

Frankie decides to go to Vietnam on a whim to join her brother, who is a Navy officer. While there, she becomes a surgical nurse and faces many different challenges and adventures. She spends two years saving or saying goodbye to so many soldiers that when she returns home, she doesn't know what to do anymore. We then follow her as she tries to make sense of life and discover a new purpose.

During her time in Vietnam, Frankie makes two lifelong best friends and meets many handsome officers. She goes on life-changing adventures and discovers her passion. Upon returning home, she experiences what many soldiers do - a lack of purpose - and spends the rest of her life trying to regain it.

This book took me on a great journey. As a surgical nurse myself, I loved reading about her assisting surgeons. As a military wife, I could empathize with her struggles (and those of other veterans). This was the best book to start off 2024!

I love the support between the 3 women consistently throughout this story! I did not realize the integral presence of females in Vietnam.... However it is not surprising the lack of recognition or acknowledgment from the government or civilians for female veterans. Great writing and insight to the women dealing with the same experience and aftermath in their own ways. I highly recommend this book for everyone!

You’re not going to be disappointed!!!
There were no women in Vietnam! Or at least that’s what they keep telling Francis “Frankie” McGrath. Who served not one but two tours of duty in the Vietnam war.
Kristin Hannah puts us in the barracks and shows us what woman really did in Vietnam and how our nurses “are heroes too!” How combat is often behind the medical tent and how little recognition these great women received.
This has got to be one of the best books starting out 2024!

🚁THE WOMEN by Kristin Hannah🚁

📆PUB DATE: Feb 6, 2024
➡️Swipe for synopsis
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Format: Audio
Read if you like:
🚁Historical fiction centered on women
😭Feeling all the emotions
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Amazing characters with lots of depth

Pretty sure I found a 2024 favorite on January 1st🙌🤩 this book was amazing! I have only read The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah and loved it, but know she is a very beloved historical fiction author so I knew this was going to be good. I wasn’t prepared for all the feelings I felt while reading: happy, sad, angry, excited, scared, the list goes on. The Women takes place during the Vietnam War and the main character Frankie is an army nurse in Vietnam, so there are some really tough scenes to read. This story is important to tell because many of the women who served in Vietnam, most of them nurses, were and continue to be overlooked despite their incredible service to their country. Many resources that are available to vets after their service ends (most prominent in this book being mental health resources) were denied to women who served in Vietnam. They were told that they can’t possibly have long-lasting mental or physical effects (ex. from Agent Orange) from their service in Vietnam, even though what they had to endure was horrific. I truly learned so much while reading this and am so glad @kristinhannahauthor decided to tell this story and create these characters that are some of my favorites I have ever read about. This is an absolute must read of 2024!

Thank you @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!.

Wonderful historical novel. Educates on what veterans endured when they returned from the Vietnam war.
Highly recommend this book and others by this author.

The Women opens with a party honoring Frankie McGrath’s brother as he heads off to join the many generations of McGraths who served in the military. His best friend notes that women can also be heroes and that idea blossomed into a determination to serve as well. The only way women could serve was as nurses. Luckily, Frankie was a nurse.

Her conservative family did not approve. Her father who had his wall of heroes had no support or recognition of her heroism. Her training was tough but she made good friends, friends who helped sustain her when it was hard to persevere. She arrives in Vietnam, a fledgling jumping out of the nest and falling before finding her wings. Again, her relationships were essential to her work and life. She found love and heartbreak. But the world had more hurt to come when she returns and Frankie has new battles to fight and a new war to win.



Kristin Hannah can spin a yarn. She grabbed my attention and refused to let go. I spent far too much time crying while reading this book, sometimes literally sobbing. She succeeded in making me care about her characters and I loved this book and happily recommend it but with one huge, glaring exception.

It seems like an author cannot write a book about Vietnam without repeating the lie that vets were spit on by anti-war protesters when they came home. Considering that Hannah has Frankie work with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, I would expect her to have come across their own statement that this is a smear. There are multiple academic studies that have searched for any truth to this myth. There is none. Ron Kovic of Born on the Fourth of July fame was spit on, but by Nixon supporters enraged by he and another vet shouting “Stop the bombing!” It started being spread in the 80s and was in the Rambo story. It really came to the fore to shut down protest of Bush’s wars. But it was not real. How did Hannah research the VVAW enough to have her protagonist volunteer with them and not learn they reject that myth.

Do writers choose to include the myth because it is so widespread that readers will think they didn’t do their research if they write the truth? If so, writing what people expect, even though it’s false, merely reinforces that expectation. It’s pernicious and as much as I liked The Women, I was also disappointed and upset by the lie being perpetuated once again.

The Women will be released on February 15th. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

The Women at St. Martin’s Press | Macmillan
Kristin Hannah author site

No matter what Frankie's father thinks, Frankie knows that women can be heroes too. And when her brother's helicopter is shot down in Vietnam, Frankie knows she has to do something. At the tender age of 20, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows her brother's path into an unknowable future.

The Women is full of heart stopping action and agony in this cold hard look at war and how it impacted those who fought as well as those who fought to save lives. It features a tough, brave female main character and powerful female friendships that you will come to cherish.

Back in the US, however, the war has caused strife and tension among those who despise the war effort and are protesting all it stands for, including the returning veterans sent into a hornet's nest of death and destruction. The cruelty these veterans faced upon returning home is something we'd hardly recognize today. My heart breaks for the men and women who, like Frankie, faced this nightmare and struggled to regain their foothold after the war.

Hannah's powerful writing brings to life the brutality and horrors of war and humanizes the men and women who served. It is an addictive and fast-moving story that transports the reader from Southern California to Southeast Asia and back.

I did have a minor issue with one storyline after Frankie returns home. But I love that it ended just the way I hoped. Round up to 4.5⭐️

STANDING OVATION!

This book totally captivated me and Frankie will be a character I absolutely never forget. This book was everything you want in a historical fiction.... heart, story, grit, history lesson, love, family drama... it's all of that AND MORE.

Well done, Hannah, well freaking done!

Let me first start by praising the overall content of this book, and Kristin Hannah, for taking on such a delicate and important topic! I've always admired that about Hannah's writing, and good historical fiction in general. She uses her voice and her expertise to tell us things that we as society have forgotten, or never known. For that - this book is a must read!

My main qualm with this book stems more from the, in my opinion, underdeveloped side of Frankie's independence. It got a little old that every man was a love interest, or a potential one, or one that didn't work for XYZ reason. And, in fact, I felt that that side of it really detracted from the section regarding Frankie's return home from war. I loved the first part of this book. It felt well written and I was fully engaged, however the second part dulled out for me. It was slow and the parts I wanted to see developed more fully never really came to fruition.

I still would recommend anyone to read it. I just am a little disappointed that a book which references that "there were no women in Vietnam" kind of ended up being all about the men in Vietnam.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

5 Mighty Stars

Wowzers, Ms. Hannah, you keep getting better and better! I know it’s early—I finished this book on January 1, but I am predicting this book will be my 2024 book-of-the-year as I can’t imagine what could beat it.

As stated on my Goodreads profile page, my favorite books make me FEEL first, THINK second, an LEARN third. And boy, did this book deliver on all three goals. For me, reading the Women was an extremely emotional journey. Some readers, I imagine, will find it difficult to get through. How much can one person endure before she is irrevocably lost? Frankie is an Army Corp Nurse during the Vietnam war. I was afraid for Frankie, and I FELT for her. Very deeply I felt for her. I also felt for the innocent victims of that war, of which there were many. My emotions were all over the place as I read this book, the triggers of which are far too numerous to count. Did it make me cry? Oh yes, it did.

Did it make me think? Are you kidding? I thought about the characters and the narrative many times while I wasn’t reading. I even dreamed about Frankie and what she was going through. I also spent a lot of time thinking about the whole reason why we got involved in this war and why it was so protracted. What did we get for all we gave up? And again, what about all the innocents—the children and all the other nonmilitary Vietnamese citizens and even our own military people and their families? What exactly did they suffer and even die for?

What did I learn? When this war was raging, I was mainly in high school and college. I knew the gist of what was happening, but I learned so much more by reading The Women. This war was so much worse in all respects than I imagined back then. Ms. Hannah has sparked my interest to learn even more, and I have already found another couple of books on the subject that I want to read.

Does anyone remember the lottery draft back in the late ‘60s? All of the days of the year were assigned a number. Numbers were picked at random and whoever’s birthday was assigned to the numbers drawn were enlisted. When enough potential soldiers were drafted, then the number drawing ceased. If I had been a male, I would have been sent to Vietnam as my birthday was the third number drawn. My brother’s number was 267; they had enough draftees by then. We lucked out.

Let me just say, there is a lot more to this book than war. For example, the personal relationships are deeply addressed and are a large part of the story. How Frankie found herself was complex and beautiful. The lack of appreciation for the men and ESPECIALLY the women who served was so well addressed.

My bottom line: If you can read only one book this year, pick this one.
Trust me. You will remember it forever.

Thank you, Net Galley, Kristin Hannah, and St. Martin’s Press, for an advanced copy. Opinions are mine alone and are not biased in any way.

Kristen Hannah does it again! In 1965, naive Frankie McGrath joins the Army Nurse Corps after her brother is sent to Vietnam. She is not ready for the horrors of war and neither are the young and inexperienced soldiers being sent there. This book takes you from the jungles of Nam to the blowback these veteran women and men received upon their return from the war. The government kept saying women weren't involved in the the war in Vietnam but that wasn't true! Through all of the horrible hardships and conditions Frankie encountered she created lifelong friends with other nurses that were there at the same and fortunately for Frankie they were there for her when she suffered from severe PTSD upon her return from war.

Once I started reading this I could not put it down. I cried, laughed and cheered while reading this book. Kristen Hannah has done a great service to readers writing about the women who were in the Vietnam War and the suffering during and after the war. This is a very important book that should be read by many. It provides so much insight to the role of these veterans (especially the women) who fought a war that many disagreed with and suffered afterwards. My heart goes out to all these veterans. Whenever I read about the Honor Flights happening in my city, I silently salute their bravery and courage.
I think this this will be the IT book of the year.

Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book.

✨T H E W O M E N✨
🅶🅴🅽🆁🅴—𝐻𝒾𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 𝐹𝒾𝒸𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃
🗓ℙ𝕦𝕓 𝔻𝕒𝕥𝕖—𝔽𝕖𝕓𝕣𝕦𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝟞, 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟜

🌟ⒶⓁⓁ ⓉⒽⒺ ⓈⓉⒶⓇⓈ🌟

“𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝓖𝓸𝓭 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵𝓯𝓻𝓲𝓮𝓷𝓭𝓼. 𝓘𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓬𝓻𝓪𝔃𝔂, 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓸𝓽𝓲𝓬, 𝓭𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓭 𝔀𝓸𝓻𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝔀𝓪𝓼 𝓻𝓾𝓷 𝓫𝔂 𝓶𝓮𝓷, 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽 𝓸𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝔀𝓸𝓶𝓮𝓷.”

✂️ P L O T L I N E
When 20 year old Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears the words that “Women can be heroes,” she instantly decides to join the Army Nurse Corps in the Vietnam War. Frankie is overwhelmed and traumatized by what she sees in War, but also is determined to stay and make a difference. Upon her homecoming, she experiences challenges that she never saw coming and her life slowly falls to pieces.

💭 ⓂⓎ ⓉⒽⓄⓊⒼⒽⓉⓈ
I know some readers can be a little iffy with historical fiction books, but this story seriously has something for everyone. Kristin Hannah really knows how to rip your heart apart and slowly piece it back together. This story was truly amazing without a dull moment. I learned so much, I cried so much, and I felt all the feels while reading this book. Each and every character was so memorable and the amount of research that was put into this book is unmatched. History was always my worst subject, so I knew little to nothing about the Vietnam War. I’m so happy that Kristin Hannah enlightened me on bits of it and opened my eyes to some of the true heroes of the war—The Women.

📚 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚘𝚘𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎:
💫Emotional and heartbreaking 😢
💫Vietnam War backdrop🚁
💫Political History of the US🇺🇸
💫Strong female leads💪🏻
💫Friendship and love💕
💫Family drama🎭
💫Mental health rep💚
💫Coming of age📈
💫Memorable stories🧠
💫Found family🤝
💫All the feels🥰

⚠️ 𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨: trauma, loss, drug abuse, emotional abuse, toxic relationships,death, etc.⚠️

🚁𝕄𝕐 ℝ𝔸𝕋𝕀ℕ𝔾🚁
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

💕Q U O T E: “𝒜𝓈𝓀 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒽𝑒𝓁𝓅 𝓌𝒽𝑒𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓃𝑒𝑒𝒹 𝒾𝓉. 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓅𝑒𝑜𝓅𝓁𝑒 𝓌𝒽𝑜 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒶𝓃𝒹, 𝓂𝑜𝓈𝓉𝓁𝓎, 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉 𝑜𝓃 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻. 𝒪𝓃𝑒 𝒹𝒶𝓎 𝒶𝓉 𝒶 𝓉𝒾𝓂𝑒.“

🙏 Thank you NetGalley, St Martin’s Press, and Kristin Hannah for this ARC in exchange for my honest thoughts. 💕

I think Kristin Hannah may just not be for me. Or maybe I wasn't in the mood for this book and a book of this scale and topic right now. I have been leaning towards lighter books lately, so probably poor timing to try to dive into this one. I don't want that to take away from this book at all. I think I will try to come back and give it another read another time when I am more invested and can give it the mental space it deserves.

This book follows Frankie McGrath who volunteers as a nurse during the Vietnam War. We watch her grow into herself through her terrible and beautiful time there and also how she deals with the aftermath of her return home from the war.

I enjoyed the story - especially Frankie's relationship with her friends. The book covers so many complex topics and does a great job showing some of that during her time in Vietnam as well as her healing journey. I do feel like some of topics were just thrown in there. I didn't get a chance to feel the emotions surrounding some really hard things, because there were so many things thrown at you so quickly & not given time to develop.

Spoilers!
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Two fake deaths. Really?! Ugh.

The Women
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Wow Kristin does it again. A Fantastic book. I couldn't put it down. I loved it so much I'm going to listen to the Audio next. Go runnnnn & get it. She takes on great hard issues all the time that are fresh & alive! Stories that need to be told. Stories that EVERYONE needs to know & read!!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the opportunity to read an advanced digital copy of “The Women: A Novel” by Kristin Hannah. I loved Frances “Frankie” McGrath, a socialite who joined the Army Nurse Corps and followed her brother’s path to serve in Vietnam. Frankie is unforgettable, and the reader feels her optimism, heartbreak, struggles, and pain throughout the story. Frankie truly believes women can be heroes, too, but when she returns to the States, she discovers that female heroes are unknown and nurses stationed in Vietnam are the Army’s best-kept secret. I was a teenager during the Vietnam War and never thought about the nurses who were deployed and assisting with the medical needs of soldiers. It was not until “Mash” came on TV in September 1972 that I made the connection that women served during the war. How sad that our country never fully recognized the nurses and soldiers who served in this horrifying war.

“The Women: A Novel” is a visceral novel, and Ms. Hannah takes you into the surgical tents and describes the men with severed appendages whom Frankie, a surgical nurse, and her fellow nurses triaged; there are lots of graphic scenes. Frankie had beautiful friendships with fellow nurses Ethel and Barb. Their relationship was supportive in Vietnam and continued when Frankie returned to the States. Ethel and Barb nurtured and supported Frankie as she struggled with reentry to daily life, indifference from her parents, guilt, betrayal, PTSD, alcoholism, and drugs. “The Women: A Novel” is an informative novel that everyone should read. This novel is a long-overdue tribute to the women who served in this war. Thank you, Ms. Hannah, for taking me on this journey with Frankie McGrath. This novel has a publication date of February 6, 2024, so please purchase this book on this date. “The Women: A Novel” was one of my top ten books for 2023.

4 stars
“We are the women who went to war – the nurses of Vietnam – and many of us felt silenced at home. We lost who we were, who we wanted to be.”
“The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn’t quite yet ready to hear it.”

Historical fiction writer, Kristen Hannah, dives into complex subjects, women serving in Vietnam, PTSD and family relationships. Starting in 1966, we follow Francie, who had been told for years that “nursing was an excellent profession for a woman. Teacher. Nurse. Secretary. These were acceptable futures for a girl like her… You’re, only going to be a nurse until you get married.”

Vietnam, the OR, and dying men were a shock to Francie. The war made the women she worked with friends, life-long comrades, sisters. “There was no winning in war. Not this war, anyway. There was just pain and death and destruction; good men coming home either broken beyond repair or in body bags, and bombs dropping on civilians, and a generation of children being orphaned.” (I sadly note, nothing new, still happening, just in different places.)

The book covers decades, but the pacing is moves forward quickly. I connected to the characters more after they returned home. “Had Mom always been a shadow woman, held together by vodka and hair spray?” Frankie has PTSD, before it was an acronym. “Her anxiety and anger had surged, come out of nowhere, and suffocated her…She knew that enforced silence added to her anxiety, increase her anger, but it was undeniably true that even her own family was ashamed of her service.” Vets received no support upon returning home and many people didn’t even realize women had served in Vietnam.

I loved the many references to the soundtrack of the 60’s, phrases, and memories from my teenage years: “a piece of Wonder Bread slathered with butter and sprinkled with sugar,” “listening to Credence, Vanilla Fudge, Cream, Janis, the Beatles, the Animals, Dylan, the Doors. The music of Vietman. The music of their generation.”

The Women sheds light on little known parts of the 1960s. Highly recommended. I hope it becomes a limited TV series. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! Kristin Hannah hits it out of the park yet again. Her books are always phenomenal and addicting.

I really enjoyed this one. I was sucked into Frankie’s story after the first chapter, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget her or her bravery.

Two things. I would’ve liked this even better if it focused on her time in Vietnam just a bit more. She comes home halfway through the book, and I found the second half dragging just a bit. Second thing: there were some discrepancies with Rye… sometimes it said he was her brother’s new friend, and sometimes it said they’d been childhood best friends. A little confusing, but not central to the plot or anything, just something I noticed.

I loved this book. It is a war story; it is complex and touching and thought provoking. It is a difficult book, keep the tissues nearby. I love books that teach me about history as they are spinning an engrossing story and this one doest that beautifully.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing my access to an advance readers copy of this book.