Page Turners – November review

In November the Page Turners read ‘The Women‘. This book is by American author Kristin Hannah and was published in 2024.

The main character of the book is Frankie McGrath, who was from a fairly wealthy background and, like the central characters in last month’s book, was brought up in the expectation that she would marry and spend her life raising a family and supporting her husband. Frankie’s brother was serving in Vietnam and, in a misguided attempt to gain her father’s approval and a place on his ‘heroes’ wall’ of photographs, she signed up to serve in the United States Army Nurse Corps. The first third of the book tells of Frankie’s experiences during two years of duty in Vietnam and the remainder is about her life when she returned home to a country where the tide of public opinion has turned against the war, there is little support for veterans and the future that was previously mapped out for a well brought up young woman no longer seems attainable.

The book is an emotional read as we hear of Frankie’s many traumatic experiences. It is also an uplifting tale of female friendships as we find that the bonds that Frankie formed in Vietnam sustain her through the difficult times. Her colleagues were perhaps from less sheltered backgrounds and were able to cope in a different way with all that they witnessed and were a real source of support throughout.

Whilst parts of the book were a harrowing read, we all found it to be a page turner. Many of us felt we had not been fully aware of the story of the war at the time and this well researched book gave us some insight into events in Vietnam and America.

We enjoyed the writing and felt that the descriptions gave us a good sense of place, of the horrors of the war and of events in America, however some of us struggled with the fact that the many horrific events that the author had researched were all attached to one character, meaning that she suffered a relentless roller-coaster of emotions. We felt that in truth every woman who served would have suffered some of these traumas but not all. However, we accepted this was necessary to make a novel.

We enjoyed discussing the various characters and how their upbringing affected the choices they made. Our conversation ranged from the horrors of war to memories of holidays in Vietnam.

We commend this book to you. Do get in touch if you would like to read it and you can swap our page turner for one of your own.

Deborah Wallis