The Women by Kristin Hannah- if you haven't seen this all around Bookstagram and other areas of the bookish internet, are you living under a rock? Assuming you may have been under a rock, I'll give you a little run down. This book is about Frankie McGrath, a young woman who has been raised in privilege by conservative parents. When her brother is drafted to serve in Vietnam, Frankie signs up to join the Army Nurse Corps. 

Frankie is soon serving multiple tours of duty in Vietnam, seeing so much devastation and taking care of men who have been wounded. She builds a found family in the nurse corps, and connects with a gentleman despite her best attempts to guard her heart. 

This book is kind of a saga, which is totally what we expect from Kristin Hannah. Frankie eventually returns home and has significant trouble reacclimating to civilian life. She is turned away from veteran support groups because "there were no women in Nam" and she struggles with addiction and symptoms of PTSD. And of course, there are all the struggles that go with that. She flounders with her family who can't wrap their mind around her service, she doesn't feel connected to romantic partners, and eventually her addiction comes to a head. 

I think this was the best Kristin Hannah I have read. I did appreciate that she incorporated some Black characters and acknowledgements of the additional discrimination faced by Black people who served in Vietnam as well as nods to the racially charged climate back in the states. These aspects were minor, but show progress from her past novels. 

Overall, if you like a gut wrenching character driven saga this might be one for you. If you've read past books by the author, this is true to her style.