Wartime Historical Fiction Book Recommendation: The Women

Posted On April 13, 2024

Hi Readers!

You know how some wartime historical fiction novels leave you so stunned that you stay in them and they stay with you for a long time? Unfortunately, The Women was not that for me. I was entirely engrossed in the book while I was reading it, but I didn’t miss it when I finished reading it. Sad, really.

Kristin Hannah’s books after The Nightingale have all been ingenious with the concept but failed for me because of their execution. The Great Alone was set in the Alaskan wilderness, The Four Winds during the Great Depression and The Women during the Vietnam War. All sound like they would destroy you, but none of them created that impression on me. The Great Alone, while picturesque, was basically about a toxic family, which had its moments but never reached its potential. The Four Winds was a downright disappointment, whereas The Women started out amazingly but led to a downward spiral.

~~PART ONE~~

The Women is a wartime historical fiction novel dedicated to all the women who served in the Vietnam war, but this story is about one woman: Frankie McGrath. The book is divided into two parts. In Part One, Frankie, a naïve rich little white girl, enlists to become a nurse in the war. Her entire two-year experience is covered in this part. This part of the book is flawless. I held my breath for so much of it. The intensity, high stakes, danger and loss is written with such precision and compassion that you feel like you are present there witnessing everything firsthand.

~~PART TWO~~

Part Two is Frankie’s life post war. Or more correctly, a woman’s life post war in a country where people are not grateful for her service but instead shame her for it. This is the first book where I have read a veteran’s life post war. It was intimidating, scary, wrong, but that is also why it showed perfectly how the spectrum of human behaviour can be so extreme but also so limited. Reading about a dying young soldier talk about his regrets of never professing his love for a girl. Or a dying senior soldier wanting to ensure that a dying junior soldier is okay. Or a little girl who is alive in the protective arms of her dead mother. Or just a dying tiny baby. All of this on one side of the world. And, planning for wedding showers, behaving like a proper lady at the country club on another side of the world. This stark difference is written poignantly with the unsaid but felt social commentary.

Part Two was also where I struggled to read a lot, because it was one car crash after another in Frankie’s life which felt too excessive. There was a lot of repetition in that story line as well, which made it a difficult read.

~~CHARACTERS~~

I must say that Frankie McGrath has made me feel all possible feelings that a person can feel towards a fictional character. Awe. Hatred. Love. Sadness. Pity. Empathy. Anger. Pride. Repulsion. And more. At times I just wanted to give her a big warm hug but at times I wanted to shake her up. No matter what, the feeling was always on the extreme. I also realized how uni-dimensional her character was in the first part where it was all about Vietnam and saving lives. But, in the second part, we see all these multitude of layers to her that stemmed from her time in the war. Maybe Part One was meant to be that way so that Part Two could be this unravelling way. So, yes, I had a love-hate relationship with Frankie which oscillated between the two emotions too often.

As for other characters, I really would have loved to read more about Barb and Ethel’s lives. I would have loved just small interludes with Barb, Ethel, Finn or Jamie’s stories.

~~TO READ OR NOT TO READ~~

If you love reading wartime historical fiction, you should read this book. If you have liked Kristin Hannah’s earlier books, you will probably like this too. If you want an intensely complicated book about the Vietnam war, then this isn’t it. If you are looking for something similar to The Nightingale or The Rose Code or All the Light We Cannot See, then this book is not in those leagues. But, if you want to read about a veteran’s life post-war, you should read this book. I have rated The Women by Kristin Hannah at 4/5 stars!

Until next time,