Is there an audiobook of The Women?

Yes. The Women has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Kristin Hannah and Julia Whelan.

How long is the The Women audiobook?

The The Women audiobook runs 14 hr 57 min.

Our review

The Women

Name: The Women
Author: Kristin Hannah

Kristin Hannah

4.8/ 5 · Incredible

Kristin Hannah's The Women is a Vietnam War novel about Frankie McGrath, a sheltered California nursing student who joins the Army Nurse Corps in 1965 and then has to come home to a country that wants to forget the war. Historical fiction with real emotional force.

Narrated by Kristin Hannah and Julia Whelan

Audiobook · 14 hr 57 min

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How the narration holds up

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The Review

Our take

The Women goes straight for the heart, and it gets there. Kristin Hannah has written a big, open-handed novel that makes no attempt to be cool about its feelings, and the tears it draws come from the story, not from any trick.

Frankie McGrath is twenty, a nursing student in Southern California who has always done what was expected of her. In 1965 she hears that women can be heroes, and something in her shifts. When her brother ships out to Vietnam, she follows him into the Army Nurse Corps, as green as the soldiers she's about to treat. Hannah is at her best in the early chapters in country, where innocence meets the first mass-casualty day and does not survive it. The medical scenes are graphic and specific, with the gallows humor that gets staff through a shift, and they never feel decorative. Friendships form fast under that pressure, with fellow nurses Barb and Ethel as lifelines. Those bonds carry weight in every part of the book.

Then comes the part the title is really about. The war ends for Frankie when she boards the plane, and her trouble begins on landing. She comes home to protesters, to a divided country, and to people who seem to believe women were never there at all. This is where the novel stops being a war story and becomes a story about being forgotten, with PTSD handled plainly and with dignity. Hannah's wider point lands without a lecture: the service of women in war has too often gone unrecognized. Readers who lived through the era say the book brought it back with uncomfortable accuracy, and readers who knew little about Vietnam say they learned something.

Why you should read

Emotional historical fiction about war
Friendship stories set under pressure
Readers who liked Hannah's earlier novels
Fiction that fills in forgotten history

What to expect

A long, emotional read that moves quickly
Graphic hospital scenes in the Vietnam chapters
A second half focused on coming home
Some emotional beats you may see coming

It is also a book that rolls along. The prose is easy and the chapters keep moving, which makes it a fast, absorbing read despite the weight. The one complaint worth making is that the emotional peaks can be foreseeable; you often sense the sorrow coming before it arrives. It arrives anyway, and it still hurts, which says something about how well the book is built.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.8/ 5

Incredible

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Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of The Women?: Yes. The Women has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Kristin Hannah and Julia Whelan.
Listen free with Audible
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the The Women audiobook?: The The Women audiobook runs 14 hr 57 min.

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Common questions

What is The Women about?: The Women goes straight for the heart, and it gets there. Kristin Hannah has written a big, open-handed novel that makes no attempt to be cool about its feelings, and the tears it draws come from the story, not from any trick. Frankie McGrath is twenty, a nursing student in Southern California who…
Is The Women worth reading?: We scored The Women 4.8 out of 5. Kristin Hannah's The Women is a Vietnam War novel about Frankie McGrath, a sheltered California nursing student who joins the Army Nurse Corps in 1965 and then has to come home to a country that wants to forget the war. Historical fiction with real emotional force.

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