For a quick summary, Frankie the main character just got out of her drug and alcohol addiction center that she has been in for the past 6 months due to her PTSD and depression after coming home from Vietnam and the events she experienced after. She decides to start a new life and moves from California to Montana where she lives there with other girls who were also nurses in Vietnam. She gets her nursing license back and works at the local hospital in Missoula. I’m glad she’s finally started to find herself and not only heal herself from her past but also help other girls heal from their pasts as well. She seems to take on a leadership role for these other girls which I think really shows her development from even a year ago where she was the one who needed help.

Years after living in Montana Ethel and Barb, her two best friends from Vietnam want her to go to a Veterans from Vietnam memorial at the capital in Washington D.C. She thinks about it and it brings back memories but she decides to go and be with her friends.

Once they arrive and march through her family ends up surprising her by showing up which is definitely a surprise because before this point they had seemed embarrassed and ashamed of Frankie’s service during the Vietnam War as they always said men were the only ones who should fight. Her dad ends up breaking down crying and apologizes for this. I thought this was great closure in the story and a nice way to show their start towards repairing their relationship.

She then ends up going to find her old friend’s name on the wall who passed away Jamie. They kind of had like a thing for each other when they were both surgeons in Vietnam because they worked so much together but he got shot down in a helicopter on a vacation trip to go see his wife who he was going to break up with because he liked her. Well, he ended up being in front of where his name was so he was alive! I’m glad he was alive because it is the exact person she needed in her life after not being understood by the people around her and having a man in her life. And that’s how it ends! Pretty much happy ever after. I enjoyed this book a lot. It kept me very interested throughout even though it was almost 500 pages long.

One big theme in this book was how war significantly impacts the mental health of veterans throughout their lives, with PTSD just being a new thing not many were properly taken care of making addiction very common

There is so much new stuff to unpack in this section of writing just like the others so here’s a quick rundown and my thoughts of it! The first chapter of it starts out with Frankie and her ex boyfriend Rye who she thought was dead talking at her front door. She followed him to his house after he went to the beach with his Wife to try to find her on purpose like woah bro you have a wife so I thought that was a little weird. They start and Rye tells her why he didn’t tell her that he had a wife before they went to Vietnam. And Frankie believes it…so they end up having a sexual relationship for like 8 months where he keeps telling Frankie that he and his wife are going to break up but it isn’t happening until finally it does. This affair I think shows a lot about how Frankie has been with men and I think it also shows her low self worth which she shares that she also agrees is very low because she knows what she is doing is wrong but is still doing it.

Finally Rye tells Frankie that he and his wife are divorced and proposes to Frankie. She immediately says yes and seems to finally be putting her life together which I enjoyed as her constant life issues and stuff that she was doing to make it worse on herself was really kind of annoying me as a reader. But then when she was going into her first nurse shift after being on leave for almost a year she sees a group of reporters trying to see Rye because he was having a BABY at the nursery with his ex wife. Meaning he was lying to her the whole time they were in this affair which makes sense because once a cheater always a cheater and it for sure showed here.

This in turn causes Frankie’s life to fall apart. Her friends come to try and help her feel better but she just won’t talk to anyone. She completely shuts people out, which seems to be a big theme in this book, Frankie’s friends and parents are constantly there for her all throughout in Vietnam and when she comes home and is struggling but she continues to not care much about the time and effort that these people are spending trying to make sure that she is okay. She is jealous of her friends although they are the ones flying across the country whenever her life is tough, not the other way around. She seems to just constantly shut people out around her that are trying to help, which makes situations worse for her.

Frankie ends up overdosing on the pills that her mom gave her to help sleep and have energy to deal with her miscarriage. These pills showed studies on being addictive to many people so that’s why it probably happened. She is obviously going insane and I feel bad for her situation but she really did it to herself when she could have just moved on from a cheater who obviously was a liar instead of losing her mind about all of it.

The section ends with her finally getting out of her therapy center for drug and alcohol addicts. I hope this is the start of the end of a good life for her and she finally is able to turn it all around.

Her fast paced writing style of events has really kept me engaged. Even though sometimes it’s too much I like there being a lot of events rather then a little so I enjoy it.

This section starts off by Frankie heading back to California because of her mom having a stroke after living in the South with her two friends Barb and Ethel. She finally gets to see her parents after years and makes up with her Dad after the fight they had years before that made her leave in the first place. I think Frankie’s moms stroke was tragic but really brought Frankie and her Dad back together as both needed each other in a time of sadness. However, throughout this section Frankie still has her moments with her Dad where she gets frustrated with his views on women serving which causes issues for her throughout. It’s a bit annoying to see his point of view after them apologizing to each other cause it seems like his thoughts didn’t change much which kind of makes it feel like he didn’t mean his apology.

Due to her Dad’s celebration of the 4th of July with banners hanging up such as “Bring the boys home” and others talking about how men are the only ones that matter it leads her to seeing a guy she knew a bit before Henry. She met him before at a march against the Vietnam War and had seen him a few other times in California and it was clear he had a crush on her but he was like 12 years older and had a kid. He ends up walking her home from the party to her house and they do the deed…a little weird to read about again as this is the second time it has felt like i’m reading a porn book but it wasn’t long thankfully. Frankie and Henry end up getting into a relationship over that summer which I thought was kind of weird because she kept saying she was still on love with the guy who died in Vietnam, Rye, so it made me a little mad and annoyed she was dating him because it wasn’t fair to him as it seemed like he was a good dude.

After a while of them dating Frankie finds out she is pregnant with Herny’s baby, she is a bit nervous about this at first as she is worried about her parents views on this as they are very catholic and Henry and Frankie weren’t married. This causes Frankie to decide it is right to marry Henry and forget about waiting for Rye. This made me happy because I was glad she was finally giving henry a chance and her family a chance.

But then…when the POW’s are coming home from Vietnam, Frankie sees Rye ON TV. This sends her into a complete jumble of emotions as she thought he was dead but also knows she has a baby and a Fiancé so she doesn’t think she can go back to him, but she goes to where his plane is landing anyway…Where she finds when he gets off that he had a wife and a kid during Vietnam and he lied to Frankie!! At this point Frankie was in a complete panic attack of emotions and when she goes back home all she does is cry. Personally I would just get over it because the man has just lied to you the whole time so he’s not the guy you think he is so now you should just care for your Husband and Child on the way.

But speaking of the Child…IT DIES!! Due to her panic attacks and rollercoaster of emotions the baby dies. She then ends up breaking up with Henry as she tells him she IS STILL in love with Rye even after what she found out about him. I was really surprised by all of this but it definitely kept me very interested. There was maybe even too much going on in such a short amount of time but I enjoyed it.

Another theme I have noticed is the theme to take risks and chances. Throughout this section and throughout the whole book Frankie is tasked to many challenges as a nurse she must make and now all the chances and risks she’s making in relationships back home. It can really show that you need to make the decision that your heart desires or else you won’t be as fulfilled as you might want to be in life.

One writing style I enjoy of Kristin Hannah is how she keeps the reader interesting with all of the events going on. There isn’t many filler pages or chapters which I enjoy in reading a book that is longer then what I am used to. The topic and events are always changing which I enjoy as well and feel like she does a good job with.

For this next section of The Women by Kristin Hannah, I read pages 242-304. To start, Frankie is still dealing with the trauma of losing Rye, who was her boyfriend when they were together fighting in Vietnam. Since she’s home, she has continued to be a mess to her family and even her old friends. She’s definitely in a depressive stage throughout this section. It ends up getting so bad she gets kicked out of her parents’ house, and her friends from Vietnam come and pick her up to move to the south to Ethel’s father’s farm house.

Her friends Ethel and Barb are very supportive towards her and I think they are great friends especially with all the time and money the spent to fly across the country and back, as well as offering her a place to stay where they all live together. However, Frankie during this time is always negative about everything. Her friends sacrificed a lot to be there for her and she’s still always in a bad mood about whatever is going on. Of course it is understandable given her circumstances but these other girls have lost a lot in their lives and they seem to be at least getting by a lot better then Frankie. This contributes to why I believe this is a major theme that is developing, suffering and overcoming loss.

Throughout the book Frankie and these other girls have lost a lot and are put to the test once they get home of trying to deal with it. Not only were there brothers and boyfriends killed but they saw that mass casualties of soldiers, and civilians, with devastating injuries that they had to treat and be the last ones for some, if not most to say good-bye too. Frankie’s friends have already went through most of this process and as this section of the book moves along you start to see the beginning of Frankie begin to heal from her trauma and heartbreak. She’ll have to keep doing this to get back to as “normal” as she can ever be again and I bet she will throughout the rest of the book.

At the end of the section the book skips ahead about a year where Barb really wants to go to a protest in Washington D.C. Frankie is hesitant about this as she has tried to forget about everything in Vietnam but she ends up going with her and in my opinion I believe this will be good for her as she’ll get to fight for what she has been so longly struggling with the after effects of the Vietnam War.

One of the authors craft I enjoy is when she writes handwritten letters to show Frankie’s communication between her and her friends or her and her mom. It adds a nice element to be able to still be in touch throughout the book of mostly all the main characters (besides the ones who died)

Throughout this next part of the book Frankie endures many hardships on her way out from the war. For a quick summary, she meets another guy in Vietnam who was the person who made her think about joining the war in the first place. He gave her the idea that that “Women can be heroes too”. Frankie and the guy, Rye, get into a romantic relationship during their stay at Vietnam. The descriptions of what they are doing, especially when they are vacation made me very uncomfortable to read as I did not need to know all about their sexual relationship D: I am glad this part only lasted a few very long-feeling pages though…

Frankie finally leaves Vietnam and it was interesting for me as the reader to see how people reacted to those coming back to the war. Nobody respected her. They spat on her, and cabs would not even pick her up to drive her home. Which I thought was very interesting as she is a nurse in the war saving lives, she was not doing any of the killing of the innocents yet she was still looked down upon by her fellow Americans.

Once she gets back, she struggles with finding her place after being home from the war. It is very interesting to see her PTSD aspect of the after effect because during her time in Vietnam, she doesn’t talk much about how all these horrible things she was seeing affected her during Vietnam.

She then finds out that her boyfriend, Rye, who was going to return to America in like 2 weeks gets shot down in a helicopter and dies. This was disappointing to read but I also kinda feel like I saw it coming. Literally every other guy she has cared about before this died in a helicopter crash, her brother, her first love interest, and now Rye. I’m kind of getting sick of the repetitive dying of characters, but of course, that IS what happened in Vietnam, a lot of men died, so I am understanding of why it is a common occurrence throughout the book so far. I am interested to see how she continues to adjust to life back home and getting over Rye’s death, hopefully it is good!

Throughout this second part of The Women It really showed Frankie’s toughness because of the hardships she went through. In the first place her being in Vietnam near the heart of the fighting is horrible, but throughout one of her friends leaves that she has been with since she arrived and the boy she had feelings for (who had a wife and kid by the way) died in a helicopter crash the same way her brother did. I enjoyed this section more as it was really action packed so it kept me reading. It was also very sad to read some parts and think about what some of the soldiers had to go through back in those days. The way that these young men are described with what they are feeling and how they look when they come into the hospital gives you a idea of how bad war really is and how lucky we are today to not be in a situation like that. (or else I would be drafted right now ahhh). Hannah really also explains how people feel in the real world during this time. I never really knew much about the Vietnam war other then what happened in the war, not about how people thought about it during the war. She shows how many people do not see these soldiers as heroes to their countries as they are “killing” innocent civilians in Vietnam. However, shown in the book these soldiers are not doing this on the purpose to kill civilians where as they are taking orders from their higher-ups. These are men risking their lives for their country and they are getting no respect for it.

It also shows how the president and news articles were lying at the time to try and get people to join the war and also believe it would be over soon and they would win. Overall I have been enjoying this book a lot more than I thought I would due to the constant expectation of something interesting happening next due to them being in war of course. I am excited to see what happens next!

In the first few chapters of “The Women” by Kristin Hannah there is a lot of setting the stage for her going eventually going out on her exploration. The main Character, Frankie is pretty compelling as she tries to balance personal goals of becoming a great hero and nurse with expectations of society at the time of the book during the Vietnam War. This can be found in her lost dreams, stating, “I used to think I could be more than just a mother,” This highlights her past ambitions and goals with referring to how society has standards for women during this time. It can also depict the internal conflicts she has with herself and the desire for self-fulfillment with how much work she put in and the results she is receiving.

Hannah also shows the portrayal of female relationships in the book. Personally, this was not my favorite stuff to read being a dude, but it was not the worst thing in the world. The interactions Frankie has with her friends reveal the importance of them having each other’s backs. Which I enjoyed seeing the friendship aspect of the book so far. They share stories and create a good support system for one another. One moment occurs when Frankie’s friend encourages her, saying, “You have to fight for what you want,” emphasizing the theme of self-advocacy, and the importance of chasing her dreams.

However, she doesn’t seem to be a lot of her actually chasing her dreams. There seems to be a lot of Frankie wanting to, but instead of going out and actually chasing them she often seems to just dwell on her regrets on what she could have done, which gets a little annoying to read at points. She seems to rely a lot on her friend’s opinions and validation rather than finding her own strength. It just seems like she is holding herself back in the book a lot, so I hope that starts to change a little bit.

The book that my partner, Piper, and I picked is The Women. We picked this book because we thought it was a book that could make it easier for the end presentation due to the length and the deeper meaning aspects in the book. I am reading it with Piper because we spend a lot of time together in school and out of school, so it won’t be hard to find time to work on the project together but also it’ll help each other stay accountable for the reading schedule. I am looking forward to just being able to read a book, as usually I don’t want to spend time out of my day reading, even though I do enjoy it when the book is good, which I hope this one is. I am not sure about the length of the book as it is long but I know I can do it if i just put the time for it. I’ve also never read a book that is in the perspective of a woman so it should be different but not a bad thing of course. To ensure success, again, just being accountable with the reading schedule and staying on time with it.

When minority groups speak out to their audiences, they tend to affect and change their minds if they speak in the right way. An example of this can be found in “Speech on American Indian Rights” as Red Cloud tells his audience, “I am poor and naked, but I am the Chief of the nation. We do not want riches, but we want to train our children right.” (2) This can make the audience feel sympathy and compassion for the Chief as all he wants is to do is have his people grow up in peace, no need for money. It helps change the audience’s mind about what he is going through is tough and challenging and he needs help from the white people.

When Cultures encounter one another, one culture usually tends to display dominance and superiority over the other. This can be shown in, “A Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies.” As he explains what the Spaniards have been doing to the Indians, De las Casas states, “more than two million souls taken captive, and have sent them to do hard labor in mines, labors that cause many of them to die.” (90). This can explain how the Spaniards felt and cared about the native people to the land. Their lives and culture did not matter to the superior Spaniards as they killed 2 million people. For those who were not slaughtered, the Spaniards again displayed their dominance by using them as slaves in the harshest form, ending up as it says mostly killing them all.