The Women by Kristin Hannah is a touching novel about the women nurses who served in Vietnam. Kristin Hannah brings to light not only the fact that women were in Vietnam but that these women were subjected to all the horrors of the Vietnam War. She also shows the reality of how Vietnam Vets were treated when they returned from the war and the struggles they faced trying to deal with the readjustment of being back home.

This story was reach inside you and touch every feeling you have. You will laugh. You will cry. You will be angry. You will love every minute of this story.

Thank you to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for the advanced copy of this book. The opinions are my own.

I just love Kristin Hannah's writing. No matter which book, at some point it makes me cry. The ending got me this time. Excellent read.

Kristen Hannah can do no wrong. An amazing story with incredibly written characters who reflect the human experience so well. I loved this book and will be sharing with all my friends.

I hadn't delved into any of Kristin Hannah's works for but now, with absolute certainty, I'm determined to explore her previous creations. Kristin Hannah possesses an unparalleled talent for storytelling. Her narrative prowess swept me off my feet, immersing me so completely in the lives of the characters that it felt as if the events were unfolding before my eyes.

At the heart of this tale is Frankie, a 21-year-old nurse freshly minted from her training. The backdrop is the tumultuous Vietnam War era, with her brother poised to be sent to the front lines. Frankie grapples with a sense of helplessness and an earnest desire to contribute to the war effort. Her brother's longtime friend becomes her harbinger of hope, revealing that she can serve alongside her sibling by enlisting in the Nurses Corps. Tragedy strikes abruptly, altering the course of her journey. Yet, bound by her commitment and the contract she's signed, Frankie perseveres. The reasons for her journey now bear the weight of profound purpose. Upon reaching her duty station, the overwhelming thought that consumes her is how alien she feels in this harsh, perilous environment, and the nagging question of survival.

Kristin Hannah's dedication to researching the Vietnam War and its historical backdrop shines brilliantly in the book. The painstaking attention to detail in Frankie's day-to-day life on foreign soil reveals the depth of Hannah's commitment to authenticity. The story gracefully underscores several noble causes, drawing a vivid tapestry of emotions and themes that resonate with the readers. This, without a doubt, has been one of my most cherished reads this year.

This book will stay with me for a long time. Kristen Hannah wrote the story of a lifetime. The descriptions of war and the ravages of it had me understanding the horror of being a soldier and then a veteran. Read this book and you will agree. Highly recommend.

With another amazing, realistic, and heartfelt novel, Kristin Hannah has done it again. Frankie is a young woman of a privileged upbringing, who volunteers as an Army nurse during the Vietnam War after her brother is killed in action. Hannah expertly writes of Frankie and her fellow nurses' daily exposure and treatment of mass wartime casualties as medical personnel in the jungles of Vietnam. As the women return home, their post-war experiences are as traumatic as their time near the battlefield as they face the political shame of the war, the ignorance that women served their country, and the social and psychological aftereffects.

I highly recommend this book if you want to absorb yourself in a great read. The story, the characters, the writing, and the trip back in time will keep you turning those pages.

A stirring and meaningful story of a young nurse trained on the battlefield of Vietnam, a grueling, horrifying place to be during the Vietnam War. Frankie (Frances) Macgrath transforms from a naive, sheltered, rich girl into a capable, caring professional plagued by the horrors she witnesses and shunned by her family and society when she returns home.
As a person who remembers the bad treatment of Vietnam vets, this story brought my memories back full force. I could not put the book down.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Women by Kristin Hannah
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Kristin Hannah for sending me this ARC.

“Women can be heroes “
My first thought when reading the summary of this book was that any author is going to struggle to do this content justice. Kristin Hannah did that and so much more.

This book is about nurses in the Vietnam war. What they saw and went through there as well as what they faced when they came home. Don’t let the heavy topic scare you away because it was also about friendships and experiences that can change you in the best ways possible. This book is in my top five favorites of all time.

From the very beginning of this book Frankie (main character) is someone you want to know and root for. She has a depth of character throughout the book that keeps you engaged and the friendships she makes are heartwarming.

The book has excellent pacing which means you won’t want to put it down and it’s clear the author researched the topic thoroughly. In the end I don’t think my review can do the book justice so go read it for yourself and tell me what you think.

This book was AMAZING! I was not able to put it down after i started. It was so real to me. I had a lot of the same feelings when i deployed to Iraq. Do not start this book in the evening if you plan on sleeping that night! I was up until 2 AM finishing it.

It’s 1966 and Frances “Frankie” McGrath sees the pride on her father’s face when her brother enlists in the Navy and goes to fight in Vietnam. She receives her nursing diploma and impulsively decides to follow him, but only the Army will take her without actual experience. After basic, she’s immediately sent into action. After two tours and unspeakable horrors, She returns home to California anti-war protests and learns that her parents told everyone that she had been studying in Florence, Italy. She can’t even find a job other than emptying bedpans since she has no “real” nursing experience. The VA won’t even help since “women weren’t in Vietnam combat.” But with help from her two best friends from the nurse corps, Frankie learns to navigate a changing culture in which she can make a difference.

This story resonated with me for many reasons. I remember the war; I had friends at Kent State; I remember school counselors telling smart girls to take secretarial classes. Kristin Hannah brings the story to life!

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I will preface this review by saying I have never read a book by Kristin Hannah before. I wanted to read The Women because I grew up during the Vietnam War era, I’ve read multiple biographical books written by men who served and survived Vietnam, and I’ve known men who went there and came back injured. I thought it would be interesting to read a book about the women—nurses—who risked their lives in Vietnam.

I’ll also say that yes, the book was well-written and well-researched, and I kept on reading, which means the author did her job well. But I have to be honest with my review.

Technically, this book is more about one woman, Francis (Frankie) McGrath, who went to Vietnam to serve as a nurse and her experiences after coming home. While she does make friends with two other nurses in Vietnam, they are not at the center of this book and only appear when Frankie needs help.

Frankie comes from an upper-middle-class family and neighborhood in California and has had all the advantages. But when her brother goes to Vietnam, she impulsively decides to sign up, too, to serve as a nurse. Throughout the book, Frankie makes a lot of impulsive decisions, and none of them are good for her.

The portion of the book where she is working in the hospital in Vietnam – more like a MASH unit – is very detailed, so you get a feel of what it was like to be working under so much stress with a war going on around you. You can tell Ms. Hannah did her research well and touched on many of the emotions and experiences an Army nurse would experience. Despite the humidity, rain, monsoons, mildew, bugs, and a million other horrible conditions, every soldier with a pulse seems to fall in love with Frankie. I found that to be a little overdone. Of course, she only liked the ones that looked like Robert Redford or Paul Newman. We’re never told if her female colleagues, Barb and Ethel, experience every soldier falling for them too – even though they are all tight, we hear very little of their feelings and experiences.

Once home – after two tours – Frankie falls apart. If you know anything about the Vietnam War, you know that the soldiers who came home were treated terribly, and that is shown in the book. But Frankie makes more bad decisions, blaming Vietnam for her problems. Honestly, Vietnam did cause a lot of issues for returning soldiers, and I don’t take that lightly. I can’t even imagine the horrors they went through. But many of Frankie’s problems stem from her—not Vietnam. Her parents were portrayed as parents of that generation, and the author got that right. Parents back then told you to get over it and move on. And don’t have any emotions. But I’m not sure why Frankie kept expecting more from them because they’d always been that way.

The book continues on. Some readers felt it went on too long. I’m sure others didn’t want it to end. I would have preferred it to not drag out as long as it did.

I’m giving the book a five-star review because I know the author put her heart and soul into this novel, and she deserves five stars. Just because I mentioned things I didn’t like doesn’t mean it isn’t a good story. If you know nothing about the Vietnam War, then you’ll learn a lot from this book. If you lived through that generation, you’ll appreciate the many things she writes about. Definitely read this book. It’s a page-turner.

I have never read any of Kristen Hannah's books but I can guarantee you that I will be going back and reading some previous books of hers. Kristin Hannah's way of telling a story is unmatched. I fell in love with the characters and felt that I was submerged int the story and it was happening as I was reading.

This story is based around Frankie, a 21 year old nurse that has just finished her training. The Vietnam war is going on and her brother is about to ship out. Frankie feels helpless and would really like to help in some way with the war. Her brother's long-time friend tells her that she can help so she decides that she is going to enlist in the Nurses Corp and go serve alongside her brother. Tragedy striked before she can even get gone though. She can't back out since she signed the contract already and knows that she has to fulfill her duty. Her reason for going will just be different now. When Frankie gets to her duty station, all can she think about it how she doesn't belong there and how in the world is she ever going to make it out alive?

The research that Kristin Hannah had to do on this subject of Vietnam and the war had to be so intense. There are so many details that she doesn't leave out in Frankie's day to day life over there. There were so many good causes that were emphasized in this book. I really love how it was written! One of my favorite reads this year so far!

I voluntarily read and reviewed this book and all opinions are my own,. Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book. I loved it!

WOW what a story of the struggles of women going to Vietnam. No one even believed they were there. They saw a lot and needed to be hero’s as well as the men. A story of a woman who followed in her brothers shoes , what she endured and how her life was once she came back home. This is a story that we all need to read.

The most poignant novel that I have read in forever. I lied through this war and was an oblivious 20 year old studying hard in college. How embarrassingly unaware I was! My life just got in the way. Just as it did for so many.
There are so many facets to this novel:
An astoundingly great writer. Fast paced. Grabs you and does not let go.
A timely reminder of how gullible we can be. How the administrations of Johnson and Nixon blatantly lied and how the public believed in an honest government. I am not sure we have all learned from that lesson.
The novel captured the good, the bad and the ugly. Best friendships ever, tragic love affairs. deep compassion, humor in the face of death, the beauty of the land even in a time of war.
And the aftermath. PTSD, drug abuse, alcoholism, homelessness, depression, mental illness, suicide, disease and cancer caused by toxic chemicals.
Many of which are still ignored today. The world is still constantly at war.
I hope my senior generation will read this brilliant novel and consider it a call to action.

Thank you,
Net Galley

I've read a handful of Kristin Hannah's books, so I should have been prepared for the emotional onslaught of The Women. In her latest novel, we follow Frances "Frankie" McGrath as she enlists as an Army nurse in Vietnam.

Obviously, working at a hospital in Vietnam during the peak of the war is not an easy breezy task. Frankie completes two tours of service with scars she will never be able to fully eliminate. We follow her home to Coronado where she is greeted with disgust, to put it mildly.

This is probably my favorite book of the author's. At times, I wondered, "Gosh, will this poor woman EVER catch a break?". Even if it was a bit much every now and then, it was an engaging story, and I couldn't put down the last quarter of the novel.

I sit here trying to muster up words to describe how I am feeling after finishing the last page of this story, the Author’s Note and even the acknowledgments. I don’t want to say goodbye to Frankie just yet.
This book has opened my mind to a time I really knew nothing about. I haven’t stopped thinking about Vietnam since I started the first chapter and now I’m wondering how I’ll recover from this book hangover I have, wanting to learn and remember more about this unfortunate war and it’s Vets.
Kristin Hannah is a remarkable writer. I felt every word in this book and knowing the depths of her research (Author’s Note) I respect and acknowledge how great of an author she is and has grown to be.

I'm still trying to figure out how to process this book. I felt everything the FMC went through. It's written so well and I'll be thinking about this book for a long,long time. It's me new favorite Kristin Hannah book!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book before it officially releases.

10/10 would recommend!!!

This story is about women serving as nurses in the Vietnam War and what life was like for them after they returned home.

Total page turner, my heart was taken!

We follow Frankie through her military duty as a nurse in the Vietnam War and post Vietnam War back home in the US. We get to experience all her through her ups and downs.

I was addicted! Kristen Hannah has knocked another book out of the park with this one.

Do you ever feel intimidated by a book? I had the ARC of this for a while but for some reason I kept putting off reading it. I'm not sure if it was because I knew it was going to be a hard topic to read about, or if I was worried it wasn't going to meet my (and everyone else's) expectations after reading [book:The Nightingale|21853621]. However, I'm so glad I read this. You felt like you were there with Frankie, every step of the way and are just immersed in her story. This is going to be such a huge hit when it comes out. I am also fully expecting (and wanting) a movie version.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Frankie McGrath comes from a very well off family who lives on Coronado Island, California. Her brother has left to fight in the Vietnam War and make his family proud. Frankie is finding her place in the world when someone tells her that women can be heroes too. She decides that she can further her nursing career by joining the military and serving with her brother. She enlists in the Army, to much disappointment from her parents, and ships out. She literally hits the ground running and quickly realizes that she was not prepared for any reality of war. She feels useless and the wounded don't stop coming. The base is under threat of fire everyday. Helicopters are constantly being shot down. She has to learn quickly to keep up and to be successful.

Kristin Hannah might as well just sell tissues with her books. I was hooked from the very beginning. Frankie is such a strong willed character and I find pieces of myself in her. I am completely blown away at learning what the soldiers who returned from Vietnam had to deal with. I was not alive then, but I have an Uncle who fought and was injured in the war. He was one of those who were medevacked to save his life. He also dealt with the flashbacks and the side effects of agent orange, but I've never heard other people's stories until now. This book is an accurate depiction of how helpless people can feel without a support system. I am completely unashamed to say that I was left crying for a good while after finishing this book. I love the way that Kristin Hannah tears my heart to pieces but then gently and slowly reassembles it.