2025~11. The Women

Kristin Hannah. 2024.

​This is not what I was expecting.  Not only was it no what I as expecting, but even when I was well into the story, things would happen that I did not see coming.  Twice in a short period of time, I was out walking and audibly gasp at the unexpected turn of events. It wasn't that I didn't find the story plausible, because once it happened, it was obvious that it could have happened that way, but I was just so surprised and I cared so much about the story and he characters.

The "women" here are the women who joined the military as nurses and were deployed into combat hospitals during the Vietnam War. From deciding to enlist to deployment to coming home to the many twists and turns of life after that, I loved everything about this story.  The complicated relationships, the struggles, the trauma, the recovery, the heartaches, and the way she writes about the constant, crushing sexism of that era was all so tangible, so well conveyed.  

I didn't realize this was the same author who wrote The Nightingale, which is an absolute all time favorite of mine.  If you loved one of those, I think you would love the other, even though they are quite different in nature. The writing is impeccable.  I can't say that I am anything close to an expert on either WWII or the Vietnam War, but I know enough to have been impressed by the amount of research that had to have gone into the books.  I'm focused on my 50 bookish friends list, but I loved this book enough that I contemplated diverting from the list to read more of her books.

When the book was over, I left wishing there was more.  Not an epilogue -- I didn't think that was warranted, but more of the details of the story along the way because the storytelling was just so good. The depiction of the friendships that weave through the book were so vivid and impressive.  I loved the ending.  I love the middle parts.  I loved the twists and turns and the heartbreaks and most of all I loved the women in the story.
 
Highly recommend.  
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