The Women by Kristen Hannah

 

The Women – Kristen Hannah

I read the Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, and it was intense. It was about surviving the Holocaust and it was my favorite book of last year.  I never wrote about it because…well…I wasn’t writing. 

I was talking to a co-worker about ‘core pursuits.’ He asked what mine were. I don’t know anymore, I said.  I guess reading…I used to write and take pictures.  What happened? I think I just got lazy.  So, I cancelled cable and have been reading more…still hope the writing will follow. 

In an attempt to not be lazy and since I LOVED the Nightingale, I grabbed her latest, The Women. 

"The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn't quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. - We were there."

This novel is of the Vietnam War and its effects in America. A novel of horrors, of love, of courage and of betrayal, and the friendship of three Army nurses. 

I love Frankie’s character. Knowing that the world was changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. She went in thinking that she needed to be on her father’s “Hero Wall”, but little did she know that she would become her own hero.

This book was brutal and yet sometimes beautiful. The way Frankie shows up and is in way over her head and yet gradually turns into a total BADASS over time. It is divided into two parts. Frankie's experience during the war and when she comes home.

I loved the first half of the book.  I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough.   Then it became a story of…now what? Just what does come after the adrenaline rush of serving in a war?  It is hard to read and understand the deafening silence about the role women played in the war and then how they were treated on the other side of it.

Growing up, as a family, we would watch this TV show called MASH.  It depicted Army doctors and nurses in Korea.  I thought of this show a few times while reading this novel. 

Overall, it felt like a love letter to women…to nurses.  I enjoyed it and won’t forget all of the things we still need to do for our veterans…and for the women who served. 

Sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful.  They were there.