Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

The Women by Kristin Hannah

276 reviews

skylarkblue1's review against another edition

sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

To start with: There is no named Vietnamese character, Frankie's whole life is dictated by men and she only just follows men around, the book seems to think Vietnamese women only wear áo dàis and completely ignores the Vietnamese women who fought in the war and even supported Americans (in more ways than just serving them Jack Daniels...).

Frankie is a rich, spoilt brat who's main goal is just to have her father proud of her. Her whole life is dictated and saved by men, and there's no point where she breaks out of that. In fact, even at the end of the book, she's still chasing men. She's really not likeable, and despite the book trying SO hard to *tell* you she's strong, she really doesn't feel like that. Veterans have an incredibly high rate of homelessness and are unable to get medical care in any regard. Frankie has 0 issues with any of that, she never has money problems, she's gifted homes, and easily gets medical care.
The rest of the characters feel really 1 dimensional. And there's no even half-way decent man in the story - except one, who's treated really badly by Frankie honestly.

This book seems to pack in every single tragedy it can, it's kind of impressive and if you played a drinking game where you take a shot for every tragedy your liver absolutely wouldn't exist afterwards. The amount of tragedies is about the same as the amount of wild coincidences. What do you mean Frankie just happens to be in the right place at the right time every single time for every situation? What do you mean that some random-ass person gets news about an event with Frankie's family before Frankie does just a couple days after said event (while halfway across the country??)? Even the ending with the love interests gets fucking insane quickly with the sheer coincidences and also overused tropes.

Every single lazy writing trope you can think of, is used here. It's all telling and not showing, everything works out for the protag without much issue at all, so much padding and overused tropes and it's just a mess honestly. I went into this without reading anything about it, or knowing anything about any of her other books, but it seems like a few of the plot beats in this are repeated in multiple of her other books as well..

There is no subtly, no nuance and no proper consideration done towards the country and culture of Vietnam. There's no actual Vietnamese characters, and from what I can tell no Vietnamese people mentioned in the acknowledgements either. Which is kind of wild because it seems like there was actually a decent amount of research done into what the American life was in the army and such over there and coming back home. The PTSD portrayal was also somewhat decent - even if there was more focus on the spiralling and substance abuse than how she got better...
The book doesn't even try and tackle the issue of America being the one fucking over everyone in the war that hard. Yes it does mention that a bit, but it's more in off-hand comments and doesn't really try and *actually* talk about it - instead it just changes topic to romance more often than not.

I think this really sums up what I feel is wrong with "feminist fiction" honestly. Trying far too hard to try and go "look, women strong!" without really saying.. why? Or even just actually writing men like they're a person and not just a sole personification for the patriarchy. 

Maybe if you want to write a petty messy romance, don't use the Vietnam war as just a atmospheric backdrop.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer and Torture

regan92's review

challenging emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and War

Moderate: Infidelity and Miscarriage

rivkah88's review

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Ohhh my Kristin Hannah does it AGAIN. This book was so inspiring. So unforgettable. I loved the story and the main character and the journey she went through. Just incredible—a warm hug after a sad election week. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Infertility, Infidelity, Miscarriage, and War

haley49's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I want to start by saying this was a story that needed to be told. There is not enough literature on Vietnam and this book really explores the erasure of female vets, the treatment of vets, ptsd, addiction and the futility of the war. I appreciated it all. 

However, for some reason I went into the book expecting multiple povs and instead got one, very limited pov. I would’ve wished we could’ve had the perspective of a Vietnamese woman and/or a black woman nurse. We see some of this through Frankie’s friend Barb but we are always told not shown things and it made any commentary about racism or classism feel shoehorned in. Plus, the fact that there were no named asian characters is a miss in my opinion. The only perspective about the war is shaped by people tired of the deaths of American soldiers with civilian casualties largely ignored. The author tried but it was a matter of needing more perspectives. 

Connected to the problem of needing more perspectives is the fact that Frankie always has a love interest. It was like whack a mole. For a book called the women and only telling one’s story she spent a lot of time centering her story on men. It was not super interesting or new and took valuable page time away from women and the war-related themes. There are multiple points where romantic love is used as a fix-all for main character’s problems. It became melodramatic for a book that is not a drama or a romance. 

All of the above issues didn’t make me hate the book but I would have made some changes. Again I did appreciate the themes, mention of historical movements, Barb’s character, the main friend group, and how much Frankie earned her future happiness. The author made her regress before her progress and I appreciate that in a character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Police brutality, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

Minor: Ableism, Vomit, and Colonisation

wormgirl's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Addiction, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Vomit, Police brutality, Car accident, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

bseigel's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gun violence, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Medical trauma, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, War, and Injury/Injury detail

twigaonabike's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Car accident, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Suicide attempt, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Drug use, Gun violence, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Car accident, Gaslighting, and Classism

dkamada's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

TW: PTSD

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gun violence, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, Dysphoria, and Classism

easta98's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Infidelity, Car accident, and Pregnancy

Minor: Cancer

vannahcabana's review against another edition

challenging informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wow. I finally got to read this book after hearing great reviews on it. This book follows the story of Frankie who serves as a nurse in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It details her journey from enlistment to her struggle of staying in a war zone to finally coming home and being treated poorly. As Kristin Hannah mentions in the end of the book, much of the historical info is true- the cities, times, political headlines, etc. Soldiers were not treated well when they came home from Vietnam as many people at home protested the war. This isn’t a fluffy read by any means. She goes into great detail of the gruesome injuries and environment soldiers were in during the Vietnam War. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and couldn’t put it down at some points!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, War, and Injury/Injury detail