Book Review for The Women by Kristin Hannah

This story focuses on the women who served in Vietnam and their search for the support they needed when they returned home from the war. These women seeking support from Veteran’s services were told that there were no women in Vietnam and were sent away without the help they needed.

This is a historical fiction story with a bit of romance. The story’s emphasis is on the women who served but whose service has gone unrecognized by their families, their country, Veteran’s service organizations, and the medical community.

The protagonist of this story is Frankie. You get to look into what life was like for Frankie, her family, and her hooch mates. You also get a peek into her relationships with several men. Frankie is a twenty-one-year-old nursing student from an affluent neighborhood in Coronado Island, California. After earning her nursing license she decides to join her older brother Finley in Vietnam. Her parents were unsupportive of her decision even before Finley died in the war.

When Frankie left to serve in the United States Army Nurse Corps, she was not prepared for what she would face in Vietnam. However, with the help of Barb, Ethel, Dr. Jamie Callahan, and Captain Ted Smith she learned what it took. She helped save the soldiers who could be saved, comforted those who weren’t going to survive their injuries, and provided medical assistance to the local villagers. Frankie grew to feel that her services were needed and re-enlisted for a second year of service.

When she finally arrived back in the United States, she was spit on and ridiculed by strangers, ignored by her parents, suffered from PTSD, struggled in her relationships, and failed to successfully reintegrate herself into the society she had left. She experienced a lot of loss: her brother Finley, the support of her parents, Jamie (Her mentor, finance, and father to her unborn child), Rye (the love of her life), her unborn child (which she named after her brother), her job as a nurse, and her nursing license.

She copes by drinking and taking pills. After almost hitting a bicyclist, sending both herself and the bicyclist to the hospital, and receiving a DWI, she attempts to disappear into the ocean on her surfboard. Her father pulls her out of the ocean. She is placed in an inpatient treatment facility to help those with drug and alcohol addiction.

After being released from the addiction facility she decides that she needs to find somewhere quiet to live. She makes a new home for herself on a ranch just outside of Missoula, Montana. Here she welcomes other female veterans from Vietnam and joins the anti-war movement as a protester and a letter writer. She gets a job as a nurse and earns a degree in psychology by taking night classes. She becomes a counselor at The Last Best Place—a sanctuary she had created for the women who had served in Vietnam.

I loved learning about the women who served in Vietnam as well as what was going on back in the United States while they had soldiers fighting in the war zone. I recommend this book for those who would like to learn about the Vietnam War, those who would like a glimpse of what it is like for women to serve in the war, and those who would like to know how PTSD can affect someone’s life. I wouldn’t recommend this book for anyone sensitive to foul language—this book has plenty of it as you would expect to hear from soldiers during a war. I rate this book four stars.