A review by imme_van_gorp
The Women by Kristin Hannah

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

This was a story about the (often overlooked) sacrifices and heroics of women during the Vietnam War, and what major (and disastrous) impact their experiences, and lack of recognition for them, could have on the rest of their lives.

“Women can be heroes.”

At the beginning the story follows a fresh-faced nurse, Frankie, who naively signs up to the army in the hopes of becoming a war hero and making her dad proud, just like all the many generations of men in her family had done before her. Instead, she is immediately confronted with not pride, but shame from her family for going to war as a woman. Still, she remains enthusiastic and isn’t scared or afraid. She’s certain it won’t be that bad. She is sure she will end up at a fancy hospital, far away from the fighting, and everyone will welcome her back with open arms. After all, she would be completely safe in Vietnam, right? WRONG.

We were the last believers, my generation. We trusted what our parents taught us about right and wrong, good and evil, the American myth of equality and justice and honor. I wonder if any generation will ever believe again. People will say it was the war that shattered our lives and laid bare the beautiful lie we’d been taught. And they’d be right. And wrong. There was so much more. It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.

At her first moment of arrival, she will understand how misled she was about the state of the war and about her own role in it. From the very beginning, she will live in dire circumstances, without a moment’s rest, and with constant death and decay around her. Her journey will continue to get worse and worse; more difficult, more extreme, more dangerous, more painful, more harrowing, and more heartbreaking. Still, through all the pain, she will be able to form immensely strong and unbreakable friendships that can only develop from living through a shared experience such as this, but, on the other side, she will also loose more loved ones than she ever thought possible.

From here, the war was almost beautiful. Maybe that was a fundamental truth: War looked one way for those who saw it from a safe distance. Close up, the view was different.

Simply put, she will go through all the horrors we expect from war. As a woman. And thus, upon return, without any of the recognition for her tragedy, trauma or courageousness. Instead, she is received with ridicule, disbelief and disgust. She will find nothing but hatred towards a woman who had the gall to go to war and fight to save other people’s lives. Even more, she will have to deal with the refusal of recognition for the skills she had gathered at war that no longer fit normal life; a life where a woman was meant to sit pretty and smile, but not actually do anything. Nobody wanted to acknowledge her experience, her past, her pain, her trauma, or even the simple fact that women could be veterans too, and Frankie quickly spiraled due to the shame and isolation that was put upon her due to her service.

The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn't quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.

Considering the main character of the book is a nurse, I suppose it should be unsurprising that there was a heavy focus on the medical aspect of the war as well; we don’t get to see combat, as everything that happens in Vietnam takes place at a hospital. We see Frankie go from being a (pretty much useless) newbie to being the most kick-ass combat nurse one could possibly be. She had no real experience or skills, but had to learn it all through the most dire circumstances, and learned to do more than any woman would have been allowed to in the real world. She learned everything in the most stressful situations imaginable, and it was extremely admirable. It’s why I understood Frankie’s extreme frustration when she was no longer allowed to use any of her skills after she got back; the outrage at being told it wouldn’t be appropriate for a woman…

“The world changes for men, Frances. For women, it stays pretty much the same.” 

I do have a specific complaint, though, namely that I would have preferred the writing in this novel to be a little more emotionally charged. Sometimes it was a little too focused on general descriptions and failed to tell me the details of the wounded men or the specifics of Frankie’s thoughts and feelings about certain situations. I wanted to learn more about the men who needed to get treated, but perhaps the point of the book was that their individual stories didn’t matter; there were so many of them, they all just blurred together… And perhaps Frankie didn’t want to feel or think about certain things, so she wasn't able to give many details about that either… But still, we could have at least gotten more details about how her friendships and relationships formed and developed, because I feel like I was mostly told about that as well, rather than shown. In all honesty, I actually feel like this whole book was more telling than showing. Which is kind of the biggest critique I have of it.

We laugh so we don't cry.

Now, a quick recap of my opinions with regards to the side characters:
Barb was the best. A true female icon and the very best friend you could have. I honestly think she would have had a more interesting story to tell than Frankie. Ethel was a nice friend and admirable woman too, but she paled in comparison to Barb.
Frankie’s mom was okay, even though she had her flaws, but I think she did the best she could for a woman of her generation. Her dad was the absolute worst, though; he represented the epitome of toxic masculinity and I desperately wanted someone to knock that loser down a peg or two.

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

Frankie’s love interests all varied in range greatly.
Henry was an amazing guy, but he deserved better than Frankie. I loved him, and it annoyed me to see Frankie remain so blind to all his lovely traits. I honestly started to hate her a little bit for what she did to him.
Jamie was definitely a sweet guy too and was, I believe, genuinely in love with Frankie despite his marriage. He was honest about his feelings, but never pushed her to become his mistress. Theirs was the only actual romance I could somewhat believe in, despite Frankie’s insistence that the love of her life was Rye.
Speaking of, I honestly don’t even want to talk about Rye and Frankie’s insane obsession with him, but I must. I swear, though, it was obvious to me from the very beginning that that guy was bad news. He was a smooth liar, but I still judged Frankie for not seeing through it. Especially later in the book… She was weak and pathetic for what she let happen between them, and I think it was the final nail in the coffin for my respect for her. To let your life be so derailed by some lying man you think you had love at first sight with, but with whom you never actually had more than lust, is something I can’t quite have sympathy for. Especially since she lost her morals along the way as well.

That was the starting and ending point in life: love. The journey was everything in between.

In truth, I really wish the author had made Frankie’s love-life less… frustrating. I honestly would have preferred there to have been no romance at all, and instead, I would have wanted the book to merely focus on Frankie’s journey of healing her mental health, which I feel was now overshadowed by her love-troubles. Even more, it were her romantic choices that made me ultimately dislike Frankie quite a bit, despite my desperately trying to understand her, which took away from the rest of the story as well. Also, her love-life became way too integral to her grief and suffering in the second part of the book, whereas I think it would have been stronger to let her mental health issues stem solely from her time as a combat nurse in Vietnam; after all, wasn’t that the point this book was trying to make? That the women were important too and that they needed help as veterans, and not as jilted mistresses? I mean, why was it that every time Frankie went crazy, it was about some guy? Why couldn’t it have been about her own trauma?

Maybe happy now, happy for a moment, is all we really get. Happy forever seems a shitload to ask in a world on fire.

Anyway, this all led me to seriously prefer the first part of the book over the second part by a lot. The first part, which showed Frankie’s time in Vietnam and first few months back at home, felt gritty and real and important, whereas the second part, which talked about the years afterwards, was veering into soap-opera territory. The non-stop drama and self-loathing was not only repetitive, but it all became very predictable as well, and some “plot twist” felt a little over-the-top and unnecessary. Even worse, I started to find some of Frankie’s choices to be… questionable, at best. I started to feel annoyed by her, which was the last feeling I wanted to have! I wanted to feel sympathy and respect, but at a certain point I couldn’t help but be exasperated.