Summer Blink Book Review Series: "The Women" by Kristin Hannah

"The Women" by Kristin Hannah came recommended to me by several people ranging in age from young 20s to late 80s. It’s the Vietnam-era story of a 21year-old nurse, Frankie McGrath, from a wealthy (and rather sheltered) southern California family. She naively volunteers for an Army Nurse Corp tour in Vietnam following the death of her brother in the war.

I was initially drawn to the book because my recollection of the Vietnam War is vague. I was 12 when the soldiers returned home. My parents hadn’t allowed us to watch news coverage. I knew one person who had lost a father in the war. I had a POW bracelet. We never really studied Vietnam in school because that era wasn’t quite yet “history” in the late 70s and early 80s. That was my limited context going into this book.

While on her first tour, Frankie lives with and works alongside two other nurses from backgrounds vastly different from hers. These three nurses build a lifelong bond of friendship that carries them through the horrors of war, the wounds of heartbreaks, and the aggressive anger they encounter upon their return to the US and civilian life.

And although some of Frankie’s personal story felt a bit contrived and predictable at times, I easily overlooked that as I devoured the history behind the war story. The book not only details the horror of front lines medical care in a dangerous war zone, but it also offers a blistering snapshot of issues affecting women then that still echo today.

Woven into the story are challenges involving career options (or lack thereof), race conflicts, abortion, mental health crises, accessible birth control, voting rights, war protests and the literal invisibility of women who served in this war.

In several particularly disturbing scenes, Frankie is dismissed by a variety of VA officials and medical professionals who tell her she can’t be experiencing the PTSD and mental health issues from her time in the war because “there were no women serving in Vietnam.”

This is a quick read that I devoured as an audiobook. And the author recently announced the book is being adapted for the big screen.

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In 2022, I set out to get off the screens and back to books for the summer. My accountability was writing short Blink Book Reviews (so short you can read them in a blink). Join my Blink Book Review Facebook group to follow along for the 2024 summer series. 

 

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