Hannah definitely honed in on a really interesting topic with covering the story of Frankie McGrath, an Army nurse in Vietnam. Frankie lives in the same squalid conditions as the other (men) soldiers in Vietnam, often facing more trauma than her fellow non medic soldiers as she has to face dozens of casualty victims a day. She falls in love twice in Vietnam. First with a married man doctor. Morally upstanding, she does not allow herself to be with him and he ends up being shot down on a trip back from Hawaii. She regrets never telling him that she loved him, even though it would be an extramarital affair. The second man she falls in love with is Rye, and she leaves Vietnam (after two services) still with him.
The second half of the book describes her return to the US. She is rejected in career, home life, with her community, and with the public at large. Moreover, her service in Vietnam is lied about by her parents. After she finds out that Rye died 3 days before his return, she breaks down and retreats to VA with her two friends from the war. She regains herself, moves back to LA and starts a relationship with another man. She gets pregnant, but loses the baby after shock of seeing Rye return as a POW to a family that he lied about. She has a breakdown, breaks off her engagement and becomes reliant on Valium. Unfortunately, she then accepts Rye back into her life, and then has another breakdown, this time almost killing a man behind the wheel after Rye’s wife has a baby after he promised her he would marry her.
Hannah’s story is plot-wise very good, but I think that it muddles PTSD and relationship trauma in a way thats hard for the reader to separate. I know that this is part of the point, that in some instances PTSD makes burdens that would be bearable completely unbearable. That said, the way Hannah writes it makes it seem like Vietnam would have been brutal, but not completely traumatizing and breakdown-inducing without the relationship trauma. But then Frankie blames everything on PTSD in the last 50 pages of the book, instead of recognizing that her two breakdowns were both after Rye abandoned her. I also think that the ending reinforces this, as everything is tied up neatly in a bow when she actually finds love in that her first relationship in Vietnam comes back (he didnt die either).
Overall, good book, but had holes. The writing was not extremely emotional either, with the most emotion for me coming at the end in the Vietnam veterans memorial.
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Does anyone else agree that this is emotionless? What about that her portrayal of PTSD was a bit off….
by pcornell99