The Women

by Kristin Hannah

Book Overview

A #1 bestseller on The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times

From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women--at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250178630
• ISBN13: 9781250178633
• Release Date: February 2024
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 480 Pages
• Weight: 1.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.5" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Best I’ve read in a LONG time. Easy Read.

I am not a very fast reader. I finished this book in TWO WEEKS!!! I couldn’t wait to get to the next chapter. I am fascinated with the 60’s decade and this book helped me understand it more. Highly recommend a “summer of ‘67” playlist for background music while you read this. Also, after having finished this novel, I am watching ALL the Nam documentaries & talking to my parents about it. They were SO misinformed at the time. Thank you, Mrs. Hannah, for this treasure and inspiring me to educate myself further on this painful war.

A Disappointment

This viewpoint is that of a critical care nursing professional, with decades of civilian and military experience, for whom reading Ms Hannah's 'The Women' was a difficult task. I did force myself to finish the novel as I had hoped it would improve. In my opinion, it absolutely did not but I gave it one star for its attempt to portray a woman serving her country. And although I do believe in our need to study history, and have read historical fictions, I am not a consumer of romance novels or novels whose main character becomes merely an ongoing list of stereotypical plot-lines following one after another. Additionally, as a Charter Member of the United States Military Women's Memorial located at Arlington National Cemetery, which sadly is not mentioned as a resource for this work of fiction, I am cognizant of the enormous contribution women have made across the entire history of our country through their service to the five main branches of the US Military and entities such as our National Guard system. With these facts about myself in mind, I would like to share having read this novel while trying to throttle an ever-growing sense of anger. And, by the end of the book, I found Ms Hannah's work a dishonorable portrayal of the military women who served before and with me, along with those who have followed after me in any job throughout our military. It’s as if the author had too much material amassed to fit into one novel but thrust it all in resulting in the plot-lines feeling forced. Perhaps, this work would have been better served being split into more than one novel? 'China Beach' (an ABC TV series which also depicted an RN's experience in Viet Nam) took several seasons to tell a parallel story having used much of the same research and included depictions of the same stereotypes. I will stop here, but truly feel I have failed to convey my full reaction to this work of fiction/historical fiction. I respect Ms Hannah for trying, and realize this novel is a runaway hit, but for myself, my aunt who survived US Army Nurse Corps service in WWII (including the African, Italian and European Campaigns) and other female military veterans, this novel is a major disappointment. (FYI --> United States Military Women's Memorial: womensmemorial.org)

Amazing

Truly amazing. Learned a lot. Eye opening. Couldn't stop crying. My uncle served in Vietnam and I wish I asked him to tell me more stories before he passed a few years ago...but now I know a little more about what he endured. Must read.

Nope! Just nope!

I couldn't get into this book to save my life. It was like a long loop of the same day over and over. Couldn't finish it. Very disappointed

A Story that needed to be told

This book was amazing. I grew up during the Viet Nam war era and had no idea how women were ignored during that time. Without nurses, so many of our boys would not have made it home. While fiction, this book had a lot of truth in it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who was around during that horrible, senseless war.

So good!

This book is a 10 star book in my opinion. It needed to be told about the nurses in Viet Nam and what they went through during and after the war. The characters are fictional but the stories are true. I cried during some of it, Such a powerful story and so worth reading!

Masterpiece!

This is a masterpiece- in storytelling, in historical reporting and in literary enjoyment! Excellent!! Great for book clubs!

Kristin Hannah did it again! Read the entire book in 1 day!

Kristin Hannah did it again! Read the entire book in 1 day! Don't want to give the plot away but she brought the combat nurses that served in Vietnam the honor and respect they deserved along with ALL veterans who served shame on our government for marginalizing our veterans and making healing all the more difficult. Thank you Kristin Hannah for showing us what really happened. My great aunt who I'm named after was a nurse who served in Korea.

Child of a Vietnam Nurse - this book helped me understand mom even more

I picked up an author's copy while I was in D.C. for a reunion of Vietnam Combat Nurses. My mother is a retired combat nurse who served in Vietnam. After much lobbying, the U.S. government 30 years ago, acknowledged the presence of women in the war and allowed a memorial to be erected on the National Mall. These women were swept under the rug and not acknowledged as having served in Vietnam, and this book is powerful in capturing the strength of Vietnam nurses who were essentially left to their own devices to heal if they managed to survive and return home. Chilling and heartwarming.