This was my first – and most likely last – Kristin Hannah novel. Recommended by my pal Brenda. I chewed her out part way through listening to the audiobook, saying “if XX happens, like I think it’s going to happen, I am going to be VERY angry at you for recommending this manipulative piece of crap.”
Her response: No spoilers, but Hannah is not known for her happy endings.
(We’re in the middle of the beginning of the end of days here. Trump revered as a hero and martyr? Biden taken down by his own party? Let’s grant ourselves a little happy ending right now.)
What I liked:
- Frankie’s time “in country” – the comraderie of the nurses and doctors, the diving into the deep end and becoming a great war nurse, the headiness and passion of the out-of-ordinary experiences that led to her relationship with Jamie (?) and then Ry
- The horror of war
- The brutality of coming home to a family and a country who were entirely dismissive of her contributions and her suffering
- Frankie’s dad telling everyone that Frankie spent time studying in Europe – holy shit – and covered up her tours in Vietnam
- Ditto the assholery of the VA: There were no women in Nam – this rang true and was a gut punch powerfully delivered by the author
- The true bonds of friendship between the nurses (Frankie, Ethel and Barb) – in country and back at home – where they literally dropped everything more than once to come to Frankie’s aid
- Barb even moved with Frankie when she was relocated to a much more dangerous mobile hospital
What I really didn’t like:
- The pageantry and huge party with which Frankie’s brother Finley was sent off to Vietnam – is that historically true? Was any family ever that pleased to send a son off to war?
- The pretty slight reason that prompted Frankie to sign up to go to Vietnam (Rye’s comment, looking at her dad’s “hero wall”, that women can be heroes too) – when nothing in her life to date had in any way led to her joining the military
- The Peyton Place drama that accompanied Frankie’s return to America – the return to America, given the hostility of her family and country – plus her PTSD should have been enough to guarantee a hard landing – which I think is what the author wanted to highlight – no one was thankful to these women who risked their lives and their mental health, and for what
- I was OK with Rye’s being shot down and presumed dead – I mean, that was written on the wall as soon as Frankie left for home and Rye stayed behind
- But as soon as there was word of the war ending and POWs being sent home, I had a moment of dread – tell me that the author is NOT going to have Rye be alive, and come home so broken and damaged that he drags Frankie further down with him
- Yup
- And he comes home on the EVE OF FRANKIE GETTING MARRIED to a really nice decent guy who is also the father of her unborn child
- AND … he’s MARRIED (again, no predicate behaviour to suggest he was a cheating filthy psychopathic liar – he seemed like an upstanding guy when he knew her brother and “in country”)
- AND of course Frankie ends up losing the baby, because of course she does
- AND of course Frankie makes many many many bad decisions after that
- I get she had to hit rock bottom, but dear God, it was just too much and too manipulative (too soap opera)
- I’m not going to spoil the ending for others, but that ending was a bit too much, especially given the whole Rye drama (dead? alive? married?)