The Women
The Women by Kristin Hannah was one of the worst books I’ve read in a while and I do not understand why everyone seems to love it so much. It’s frustrating because the idea is good but the execution is just terrible. I want to start by saying that this is not a general criticism of Kristin Hannah, but of this book in particular, because I really did like The Great Alone and some of her other books.
The Women attempts to show the experience of women serving as nurses in the Vietnam War, specifically through the experience of Frankie – a young, privileged woman who followed her brother into service. Frankie first gets the idea to join the military while looking at her father’s wall of family military portraits – the heroes wall – and talking to her brother’s friend who tells her that “women can be heroes” which seems to be a completely unheard of concept for Frankie. She joins the army hoping to be featured on her dad’s heroes wall and see her brother in Vietnam, but finds out that her brother has died in action before she leaves, causing her to question her decision. She heads to Vietnam anyway, and spends the first couple of days completely shocked by the conditions she finds herself in.
The “women can be heroes” statement is one of many that gets repeated over and over throughout the book making it feel super cheesy, but that is far from my biggest issue with this book. Frankie very quickly adjusts to her position as an evac nurse, rising through the ranks and losing any sense of challenge with the actual job. Instead, she and her nurse friends go to parties where nothing happens (except some guys flirt with Frankie) and work in the OR where nothing happens (except the occasional really bad night or Frankie meeting a soldier for 2 seconds with no plot development). Frankie is really not an interesting character, and the book centers much more on her relationships with married men than the experience of women in the war as it pretends to be.
There are a few threads of interesting topics or plot points, but they are buried by Frankie’s constant relationship blunders. For example, she loses her faith in the US and the war throughout her time in Vietnam, but this is sort of background noise told through small snippets of letters she writes. I also had hope when Frankie’s roommate Barb – a woman of color – started out by not really giving Frankie the time of day. This could have been a really interesting microcosm of race relations at the time and could have led to some really profound conversations between Barb and Frankie, but instead, they just magically become friends one day and then they’re best friends forever without the reader seeing any interactions that actually led them to be friends. On the race note, there is a point when Frankie says that she thought the Civil Rights Act fixed everything, and it’s such a naive perspective without it really feeling like an authentic part of Frankie’s character that I almost couldn’t continue with the book after that.
When Frankie gets back from the war, she is suffering from some pretty serious PTSD and the VA has no sympathy or services to offer her. This could have been an interesting part of the book, and her experience after the war is half of the book, but instead it gets dropped when she gets into relationships with big strong men who make her feel better and only gets brought back up when she is going through a breakup. I think this plot point ends up really misrepresenting PTSD and making it seem like the solution is always a romantic relationship.
I have so many ideas for how this book could have been better. Mainly, I wish there were multiple perspectives and more of the universe of women in Vietnam brought into the book. I could see Frankie’s roommates’ stories being more interesting than Frankie’s. Why did they decide to go? How did Barb grapple with her disgust at the government and the war but still show up every day? Beyond that, what about a woman who was a performer for the USO or a woman working with one of the journalists or one of the vietnamese women working as a server in one of the clubs, etc.
Obviously, I would not recommend this book and I’m mad I spent my time finishing it. That said, it’s getting a star because I finished it.
