My Book Review of The Women

 My review of the book The Women by Kristin Hannah


Oh My Gosh. I love this book so much. If you know me or my typical book tastes at all you would probably think I’m lying when I say I love this book. Marina reading a historical fiction book is pretty much unheard of. However, despite my typical love for romance, romantasy, or dystopian fantasy, I am so glad I branched out and read this book.

 It is set at the time of the Vietnam war after America joined and it follows the life and feelings of Frances “Frankie” McGrath after she decides to join the war efforts as an army nurse. This was my personal favorite part of the book because I loved hearing about her experience learning how to be a good nurse, finding lifelong friends, and helping so many people. There was lots of action is this section because of her placement near the heart of the fighting so I was never bored. There was even a bit of romance which I, of course, loved.

 After her time in Vietnam, it continues to follow Frankie as she struggles with PTSD, depression, and addiction. Nobody helps her because nobody believes that women were in Vietnam, and on top of that nobody respects Vietnam veterans at this time. They all say that there “were no women in Vietnam” or just spit on her for serving her country. This part of the book was written beautifully. I think that Kristin Hannah does a great job of portraying these mental illnesses so others who haven’t experienced anything like this can understand what Frankie is going through. The writing was so good that it made me angry! Reading about the struggles that Frankie went through and how nobody believed or respected her made me so, so mad. It felt like I was in Frankie’s place. Like people were telling me that I wasn’t in Vietnam! Every time I read this part of the book I would put it down so mad that I would usually have to go outside or away from people and cool off for a second. That might sound bad but, the fact that I was so immersed and engaged in this is truly a sign that Kristen Hannah is a great author. 

You can tell that she puts lots of work and research into her books because there were very few historical inaccuracies. After I finished reading this book I did some research on Kristen Hannah because she was that good of an author (something I never do) and I found that she interviewed many veterans of the Vietnam war to keep all of the information accurate. 

In conclusion, this is a fantastic book that I would recommend anyone to read!

-Marina

Comments

  1. HyelynnAugust 29, 2025 at 11:58 AM

    Hi Marina, it's great to hear how you branched out from your normal comfort zone to read historical fiction! As a lover of historical fiction myself, I think I'll check it out!

    ReplyDelete
  2. NivedithaAugust 29, 2025 at 5:58 PM

    I've read a few historical fiction book and enjoyed them. This one sounds really good and well written I think I might have to check this book out!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnaAugust 31, 2025 at 1:26 PM

    I remember reading this book a few years ago. You really learn a lot about a period in history from someone's perspective (when it's historically accurate). Thanks for sharing, I've put another book of Hannah's on hold :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Eleni DeltasSeptember 2, 2025 at 7:08 AM

    Dang, that book must be really good if it got you to be that mad. Its always a good sign if the author can control the readers feelings and make the story feel so real.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Justin LewisSeptember 8, 2025 at 11:04 AM

    Seeing you not reading things like King of Sin or Twisted (iykyk...) actually shocks me...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Save Me a Seat Literary Review Blog

     Save me a Seat is a realistic fiction story written by Sarah Weeks and Gita Varadarajan. The story mainly revolves around 2 main protagonists; Joe Sylvyster, and Ravi Suryanarayanan. In this blog I want to explore some of the deeper cultural aspects, as it is not only written by 2 entirely different cultures, but also narrated. I would also like to highlight how knowing somebody else's perspective may be helpful in understanding the full situation.      On his first day of school, Ravi (who recently moved to America from India) sees his homeroom, which is made almost entirely of white Americans, with only 1 other Indian-American, named Dillion Samreen. At first sight, Ravi instantly knows that Dillion is an ABCD, an “American-Born Confused Desi” (which pretty much means an Indian who acts “White”). Dillion is very popular, Ravi is sure Dillion wants to be his friend, as Dillion is repeatedly winking at him. During the first few hours of school, the tea...
Read more

A Review of Our Wayward Fate

Image
        A couple weeks ago, I was hunting for a new book at the school library. After scanning for a couple minutes, I chose a book called Our Wayward Fate by Gloria Chao. I chose it because the book didn’t seem too long, and sounded interesting.  Our Wayward Fate is about seventeen-year-old Ali Chu. Though her parents are from China, she lives in Indiana. She describes the town she lives in as “dry toast”. Her town is not diverse at all - in fact, according to Ali, she’s the only Asian in town. Her teachers and classmates always make racist comments about Asian people, but she never stands up for herself. That is, until Chase Yu moves there.  From the second he gets to school, people are already shipping Ali and Chase, just because they’re both Asain and would be “perfect together”. Ali shows no interest in Chase, because she doesn’t want to prove all the people at her school right. But through kung fu and nerdy puns, they grow fond of each other....
Read more