[3] In an interview with LibraryThing, Hannah commented:[4] For years, I wanted to write about the turbulence and chaos and division of the times, but it wasn't until the pandemic, when I was on lockdown in Seattle, confined to my home essentially, and watching our nurses and doctors serving on the front lines of the pandemic, becoming exhausted amid the political division of the time that it all came together for me.

"[3][4] In the book, after attending a march by Vietnam Veterans Against the War in Washington, D.C., Frankie encounters two volunteers for the National League of POW/MIA Families, from whom she buys a silver cuff bracelet on which the name of a missing soldier and the date of his disappearance are engraved: "Maj. Robert Welch 1-16-1967.

"[5] In her research, Hannah read several memoirs by nurses who served in Vietnam, many of whom experienced difficulty adjusting to civilian life and were afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"[11] Alice Cary of BookPage wrote that "Hannah demonstrates her knack for blending broad sweeps of history with page-turning plots to immediately engross legions of readers in even the most difficult of subjects.

"[12] In her review for The Boston Globe, Meredith Maran panned the novel for resorting to cliché and criticized Hannah for "underestimating her readers", concluding, "Cut by half, edited to delete the predictable, the "matronizing," and the obvious, The Women would have been an even stronger contribution to Hannah's body of work, and to her millions of fans' understanding of American history.