The Women by Kristin Hannah was a thoughtful, heartbreaking, tear jerking, and informative historical novel about three nurses who have all volunteered to serve in Vietnam. But wait, “No women served in Vietnam!” You will hear this refrain from many a character in the novel. It wasn't widely known that women were indeed serving in Vietnam.
Barb, Ethel, and the main character, Frankie McGrath are all young hard working nurses serving in Vietnam in the late 1960’s. Hannah does a good job walking you through the journey of the nurses and those who they served with- they move from thinking it is a just cause to a lost cause. Frankie arrives in Vietnam an idealistic young woman, wanting to help men who are serving like her brother Finley did.
She navigates the horrors of war while becoming an extraordinary surgical nurse and falling in love with fellow soldiers.
The chapters in Vietnam fly by. The events were so intense. When Frankie returns home, it tends to move a little slower as Frankie navigates returning home to a country that doesn’t appreciate or respect her sacrifice. A country that doesn’t know the meaning of the term PTSD. My only suggestion would be similar for many historical novels of this breadth. The first half is laid out really well. The second half spends a lot of time explaining all the different ways Frankie is damaged and crying out for help- and then the really momentous ending seemed a little rushed to me.
Overall, I loved this book. 4.5 stars/ I will be recommending to all

Thank you to St. Martins publisher for this arc by Kristin Hannah. Kristin Hannah is an author who I love I was delighted to get an advanced copy of her newest work. Kristin Hannah focused on Vietnam War and the struggles that role that women nurses played during this era.
The main character Frankie is a character that I will remember. I realize that the Vietnam War can be a hard issue to write about but, this author handled it well. This book makes one of top books of 2023. Grab a couple of tissues and relax with this amazing novel.

Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy Kristin Hannah's writing until I sink into another one of her books. To say that I enjoyed this book would be a huge understatement. The Women is a historical fiction about the women who served during Vietnam. I have to admit that it's not a part of history I have given a lot of thought to.. I actually saddened that I didn't know more going into this book about the women and what they went through as nurses in Vietnam. There are so many women in history who are forgotten.
This book was beautifully written. It encompasses stories of young innocence, family loss, personal anguish, love and relationships, lifetime friendships, PTSD, and alcoholism, along with women's rights. There are lighthearted times mixed into the book, but so many emotions as well. We know now what a mistake the Vietnam War was. We know the government lied. I'm not sure that even now, we appropriately acknowledge the men and women and their sacrifice. I can't imagine coming home to family that was embarrassed that I had served overseas and being shamed for supporting my country.
This book pulls on all of the emotions. I read it quickly, but took a couple of weeks to really process it. If you've enjoyed The Nightingale and The Great Alone, you're going to love The Women.

A riveting portrayal of a country at war both at home and far from home in Vietnam. It was a time of unrest and sadly those men and women who served their country (right or wrong) came home not to salutes and hugs but protest, insults and avoidance. Frankie (Frances) and her brother Finlay lead a charmed life surfing and hanging out at their California country club but that all changes when they both enlist to serve in Vietnam. While Finlay is branded a hero Frankie's decision to become an Army nurse is not and her parents are ashamed of her. Nothing prepares her for her time in Vietnam and she grows up overnight. In between the endless bombing, long nights of too many wounded and fatigue Frankie makes some lifelong friends and falls in love a couple of times. When she finally returns home she is met with denial that she even served unlike her male counterparts. Kristin Hannah gives us an honest and well researched story of love, friendship and coming of age in combat as well as dealing with the emotional toll of coming home. The nurses bond for life and help each other get through loss, PTSD and find happiness where they can. THE WOMEN brings us to the heart of the real experience of war and beyond where coming home was almost as bad as being there in an emotional story that only Kristin Hannah can tell. For those of us who only had TV shows like MASH and CHINA BEACH to understand the war in Asia this packs a punch. My thanks to the publisher for the advance copy.

What a special and beautiful story! This epic tale follows Frances “Frankie” McGrath as she enlists in the army and becomes a nurse on the lines in Vietnam. She experiences unspeakable horrors, extreme conditions, and amidst all of that forges some important relationships that will impact her life forever. Once she returns home, there is no celebration or even acknowledgment for her sacrifice and bravery. In fact, her parents seem embarrassed of her choice to serve. No one wants to recognize women can be war heroes too. Frankie falls into a downward spiral, marked with pain, depression, and addiction. She must grapple with her past and decide if she wants to live in the pain, or push past it all and move forward with her life. This took me on an emotional and gripping ride, that I will never forget.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press + NetGalley for the ARC. What a treasure this story is, and I feel so lucky to have had a chance to read it early.

How have I never read any historical fiction centering on the Vietnam era? Hannah's novel tells the story of a young woman coming of age as an army nurse in Vietnam, and what life is like when she returns home. To be told "there were no women in Vietnam" - what must that have been like for female veterans? This book explores that very scenario, and I think it's an honest, unflinching glimpse into the horrors of the war and life after. Heartbreaking but hopeful, this is a really good read. It's a long one, but worth it.

5 stars

I'm thinking Kristin Hannah wakes up, sips her coffee, cracks her neck and knuckles, and thinks as she sits down at her laptop, "Hmm. Prepare to have your hearts ripped out even more brutally and frequently this time, Readers..."

This is my fourth Hannah book, and while I'm always certain she can't outdo herself, for my purposes, she has again with this most recent effort.

_The Women_ centers on Frankie (nee Francis) McGrath, a young nurse from Coronado Island. Her father's heroes' wall has always been apart from her, and as her brother Finley prepares to go to war, she's told a well-timed anecdote that makes her realize that she, too, could be on that wall, and that she feels the pull to serve.

As is always the case with Hannah's work, readers go all in with Frankie. We watch her suffer, love, grow, exceed everyone's expectations and also disappoint them, and work through many horrifying and contradictory experiences. For many readers, her encounters will seem unimaginable. An unexpected highlight for me throughout this read is the power and vital nature of friendship. In an effort to remain spoiler-free, I won't add any details about that here, but this motif, along with the more expansive discussions of shared experience and community, make for some of the most heartrending and memorable moments in a book that absolutely bombards readers with, truly, ALL the feels.

I had outrageous expectations for this one and they were still far exceeded. Special props to the audiobook, which features a well-known and very successful narrator who really make Frankie come to life.

Kristin Hannah has done it again, and I can't wait to see who/what gets her attention next.

“Women can be heroes.”

I’m convinced Kristin Hannah can do no wrong 👏🏼

The Nightingale will always be my favorite book by her, but The Women is coming in at a close second! 😮‍💨 This story covers some heartbreaking subject matter, with real detailed stories about the Vietnam War and life post-war for the veterans. I think my cry count was 10+ throughout this book 😭 It is such an impactful story and you can tell that the author invested her time in the writing of this book to make it as accurate as possible.

The research Kristin Hannah had to do for this book absolutely blows my mind. I 100% encourage you to read the authors note after you finish it! It was such an eye-opening and educational book, but told in an extremely engaging way.

The female MC, Frankie, is such a strong woman and endures so much heartache and trauma throughout the book - but she comes out stronger because of it. & the female friendships 😭 I loved Barb and Ethel so much!

As with most Kristin Hannah books, there are some love stories throughout the book, but they do not take away from the overall plots of the story - such a perfect balance.

The ending is one of my favorite parts of the book 🥲 I was quite literally sobbing as I finished it.

I could go on and on about this book, but I’ll leave you with this…

Women can be heroes & you will want to pick this book up on February 6th! 🫶🏼

*thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Hands down, the best book I've read in months. Kristin Hannah has a gift for historical fiction. In The Women, we meet and follow Frankie McGrath as she completes nursing school and enlists in the Army Nurse Corps to serve in the Vietnam War. We follow Frankie throughout her service in Vietnam and her many struggles upon her return to the United States.

Kristin Hannah truly has a gift for taking a little known or recognized piece of history and putting a story to it. I was engrossed in this story and did not want to put the book down. I was amazed at the strength of the main character Frankie as she found her way through Vietnam and a post-Vietnam world. I learned a lot about Vietnam in general from this book, about nursing during Vietnam. As a nurse myself, I love a story that focuses on a nurse. I felt I truly connected with this book and I did not want it to end. Though nearly 500 pages, I plowed through this book. Do yourself a favor and order a copy now!

4.5 stars!

War books are definitely not my go-to genre, but I’ve loved everything Kristin Hannah has written so I thought I would give this one a try and I’m glad I did! Some parts are rough to get through, but she does a great job building such special characters that you’re rooting for until the end. I love Hannah’s writing and think she did a really good job honoring the forgotten women who served in Vietnam. I also learned a lot about the war and the time period. A tough but important read.

Kristin Hannah did a wonderful job describing the Vietnam war and the PTSD that followed. I was moved to tears many times throughout the book. Wonderfully done!

Kristin Hannah is a phenomenal writer, and storyteller. I’ve read nearly all of her books and THE WOMEN might just be the best one.. It’s the 1960s and the Viet Nam War in raging. I was a young girl and the war was constantly in the news and a major subject.
Frankie McGrath has finished her nursing degree and impulsively joins the US ARMY to follow her brother to Viet Nam. She’s going to look after him. Even before her arrival to Viet Nam, her brother is killed and Frankie finds herself in way over her head, working in field hospitals, patching up severely mangled soldiers, and trying to stay alive herself. Through friendships and a pair of love interests, she survives and returns home to idyllic Coronado, California. But, everything has changed and mostly her. She’s witnessed things most peopke can’t even imagine. But she’s home now suffering PTSD, and a drug and alcohol addiction. Being home seems to be where her real survival struggles truly begin. Faced with backlash from her family “women don’t go to war” and from a public fed up with all things Viet Nam, Frankie spirals into a life of gut-wrenching ups and downs.
This story is so well-written, engaging and emotional. There were times I had to pause reading when the actions Of people made me so very angry and upset for Frankie.
THE WOMEN is A true masterpiece that everyone should read.

Thank you @stmartinpress @macmillan.audio @netgalley for a copy of this book. Hannah does it again with an amazing story. This one is on Frankie and spans over many years starting during the Vietnam war. The story sucks you in from the first chapter. I love that this book showed the effect of war from a perspective of a female nurse. There is so much heartbreak but so hope as well. I love the friendship between Frankie, Barb & Ethel. Julia Whalen did a great job brining Frankie's personality to life. I felt her anger, the frustration and her joy.

4.5 stars
There were women who served in the Vietnam war and Frankie McGrath was one of them. As an Army nurse she saw horrific injuries and death. After two years of services she returned to an America that was unwelcoming and disrespectful. What was even worse was that fellow male veterans repeatedly told her that “women did not serve in Vietnam”.
Frankie McGrath is the fictional hero in this novel but the author based her character on real life women who were brave enough to care for the soldiers in the middle of the battlefield. Her life was hell during and after the war as she tried to function with unrecognized post traumatic stress disorder. The book was totally absorbing and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the history and the atmosphere of that time. I was a young teen when America entered that war. I remember the riots, the later change in attitude towards the war, and the lies told to the American people. This was an emotional read but well worth it.

Reviewing The Women by Kristin Hannah is proving to be a hard task to serve this epic tale being published in February the justice it deserves. In Part 1, Frankie McGrath decides to join the Army Nurse Corps to go to Vietnam, inspired by the enlistment of her brother into the Navy as well as the importance her father places on being a hero. The narrative follows Frankie throughout her service with the Army Nurse Corps, with Part 2 dealing with her struggle to rejoin the world she left behind for Vietnam.

Frankie, who was raised on a walled and gated estate on Coronado Island in California, is unprepared for just how primitive all the facilities are when she arrives at her post in the Thirty-Sixth Evac Mobile Hospital in Vietnam in 1967. She is soon overwhelmed by the absolute horror in the aftermath of the wounded arriving in a background of screaming injured, shouting of orders by the nurses and doctors, and the smoke, all the smoke. Two nurses, Ethel Flint and Barb Johnson, school Frankie in combat nursing, and the three build a friendship that will take them into life after the war where people keep telling them, there were no women serving in Vietnam.

The war is raging during Frankie’s first tour of duty. Often the only thing she can do for injured soldiers is to hold their hands until they die. The damage inflicted by mortar and bullets is at first overwhelming, but Frankie, like all the other military nurses, is forced to step up and do things she was never trained for like removing a spleen and closing the operation. With only three doctors assigned to her location, she learns more and more under their direction. After her time is served, she extends her tour because she realizes with the shortage of medical personnel, she is sorely needed.

Romance enters the picture when Frankie is pursued by Dr. Jamie Callahan, one of the doctors she works with. When she learns that he is one of those “war bachelors” her father had warned her about, she shuts down the relationship before it blooms. The last time she sees Jamie, his helicopter starting his pathway home has been shot down, and he becomes just another soldier with devastating injuries that will most likely claim his life.

Soon after, Frankie is assigned to the Seventy-First Evac near Pleiku, nicknamed “Rocket City,” where the fighting is even heavier than her first posting. There, Frankie reunites with one of her brother’s Navy buddies, pilot Joseph Ryerson Walsh. After Rye swears he is no longer engaged to a woman in the States, Frankie allows herself to enter into a relationship with him, spending R&R together in Hawaii.

As if life in Vietnam is not hard enough, the women start hearing about how the homeland they left behind becomes divided by war and politics, how Vietnam heroes are not given the welcome back that they deserve. Barb becomes extremely active in protesting the war once she becomes a civilian again, and as often as she can, she includes Ethel and Frankie in the activities of the group, Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

While waiting for Rye to return to America, Frankie learns his helicopter was shot down, and there are no remains. Between the devastation to men’s bodies, the change of the Americans’ hearts about the war, and her own heart broken not once but twice, Frankie spirals down, becoming dependent on the pills, booze, and cigarettes she was introduced to in Vietnam. When she seeks help from the Veterans Administration, she is turned down once and then twice as only the men who fought in the war were recognized as veterans.

There is so much to unpack in this historical fiction that pays tribute to those women who served and sacrificed only to be overlooked by others except for those they nurtured and those with whom they served. One day, Frankie will visit The Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., which includes the names of eight women, all of them nurses.

Kristin Hannah started her writing career solidly in women’s fiction with books like Firefly Lane but she moved to combining her women’s stories with historical fiction, giving readers works about World War II in The Nightingale (2015) and Winter Garden (2010), and the Great Depression in The Four Winds (2018).

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting December 9, 2023.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

Kristin Hannah has written about a fascinating topic not often mentioned in modern novels....the women who served their country in Vietnam. Hannah has followed Frankie McGrath from her enlistment in the army through the aftermath of returning home from Vietnam to a country that was not celebrating its soldiers as heroes. McGrath wants nothing more than to make her father proud of her, and follow in her brother's footsteps, Hannah explores the horrors of war, not from the soldiers persepctive but from those who cared for, rescured, and comforted the injured and the dying. The story continues after McGrath's return from war and her experiences with those who denied the existence of women in vietnam.. McGrath self destructs and finally finds a path healing.

I have read many Kristin Hannah novels and thoroughly enjoyed them.. This is not her best or my favorite, but definitely enjoyed it especially the topic which is so rarely (if ever) explored. There are a couple of twists (spoilers) that might be hard to swallow. Thank you for Netgalley for the ARC.

The Women was one of the best books I have read. I spent the first half of the.book with a lump.in my throat and the second half with tears in my eyes.

The Vietnam War ended when I was 24. This book brings back all of the emotions of that time. The writing is exquisite, bringing back all the emotions of that time This is a book that I will read.several more times.

#VietnamWar #Netgalley #KristanHiggins #StMartinsPress #Nurses #FrankieMcGrath #FamilyDynamics

I was a child in the 60s but the Vietnam war is a very vivid memory. Every night the news would tell the story of how many soldiers died. Or what villages the soldiers captured. It was never good. The Women is one of my favorite Kristin Hannah books because so little credit is given to the contribution of women during wartime. Hannah has given us the story of Frankie, a southern California girl who wants her life to be different. She's looking for adventure but also a change in expectations of women by society. She definitely finds more than she bargained for. Hannah puts us in in the middle of a bloody, brutal, meaningless battle that was the Vietnam war. But she also continues Frankie's story after the war. We are still seeing repercussions today of what that conflict did to the soldiers involved. And Hannah shines a light on the sacrifice and sorrow of the women that were just as involved in the war as the soldiers on the front line of battle.
I voluntarily received a copy of this book from Netgalley.

I have thoroughly enjoyed every book I’ve read by Kristen Hannah so far and that’s a pretty high number. This book was very interesting, the historical detail all rang true, and it doesn’t overshadow the story itself. The author manages to weave a beautiful synergy between the two which isn’t something every historical writer can do. I highly recommend this and I don’t want to give away anything in the story, but read this book.

#netgalley #thewomen

Excellent story that draws you in from the get go...This is my first book by Kristin Hannah, who I have heard nothing but rave reviews on her work, and when I saw this, I knew I had to read it. Frankie McGrath is a woman who is young, idealistic, innocent, and sees the joy her father has in her brother, Finley when he signs up for the Vietnam war. Frankie decides to follow her brother, much to her fathers dismay and her mothers horror, only to realize as soon as she's there that she has absolutely no idea what she's doing and that signing up was a huge mistake that she can't take back. What unfolds next is her bonding with other women nurses, their journeys as they serve their tour in 'Nam, the aftermath of when they come home and step back into the lives they left behind, and deal with the fallout of loss, love, grief, trauma, and emotions in their own ways. A fantastically written story that pulls you in and doesn't let you go. Your heart goes out to Frankie. Highly loved this story!
*I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This review is my own opinion*