The Women

The writing in this book is great and has what I love most about Kristin Hannah's writing: the ability to create settings so vivid that I get lost until it's 1am and I dropping my Kindle. Where I struggled with The Women is that every emotion, relationship, tragedy are turned up to 11 – to the point where it strips away a lot of believability which, for me, is important to entertaining historical fiction.

In the other Kristin Hannah novels I've read, the protagonists were flawed yet strong. They were capable but made questionable choices... yet they always felt realistic. In this book, less so.

The focus on romance and playing with emotions in this novel lets it down. The relationships felt shoe-horned in, and the decisions the protagonist made made no sense (and no, it wasn't the PTSD).