To answer questions about
The Women,
please sign up.
JEM
Big controversial vent:
Contains: SPOILERS!
(I've got to let this out so I don't get crazy at my in person book club :)
This book starts off so promising with the important and fascinating topic of the women serving in the Vietnam war, but then dissolves into "Days of Our Lives" style drama which unfortunately completely distracted me from the main topic that I think Kristen Hannah wanted to drive home. The story of Frankie and Rye is still haunting me after I finished the book days ago and I have to vent here to try to clear my head.
I don't think Rye means to be a jerk. I think the most heartbreaking and heart wrenching part of this book is that Frankie and Rye cannot be together. I think the two are soul mates. (Controversial I know.) They are bonded by their love and loss of Finlay, their original young attraction and desire, and their experience at the front together that was longer than Rye was even in his new wife's presence.
For me I am most broken about their love story in the facts that:
1. They thought (especially pilots) every day would be their last in that horrible wretched war. So, "seize the day."
2. Reframe Rye as a victim of his time where a young man from a broken unloving home quickly marries an extremely fertile woman before he leaves for YEARS (married for 5 days before deploying - with a hint that she was pregnant before they married - which happened all the freaking time ((hello lack of birth control)) and thought he was doing the right thing, along with "someone to come home to," as many of them did before facing the unexpected.
* I would also like to vent here that aside from lack of birth control I will never ever understand why a women would try to get pregnant or risk it before a deployment like Rye had to face. Or get married for that matter, I could go on and on... (Controversial I know.)
3. Imagine you are young, and then find yourself over there in a horrible bloody terrifying war where you had no idea who you were as a person before facing this (no business getting married that's fo' sho'), and you are now becoming a whole new person quickly, and will never be the same again, serving alongside young people just like you. You will naturally bond with and lean on these fellow service members because no one at home or not serving in this horrifying place will ever be able to completely understand this experience and how different it will make you for the rest of your life.
* Point here: framed in their time period I bet a lot of guys wished they hadn't married before they left (and maybe the wives waiting at home as well) and wished that babies weren't so easy to make - Jamie said as much. (Controversial I know.)
4. Then imagine all those factors, and in the midst of the surreal situation you are in - the person you had your eye on years ago, the one who got away, your best friends beautiful and amazing sister is standing right in front of you in the same experience on the other side of the world.
5. He would NEVER have re-upped if he did not love Frankie. He would have gone home.
Again, I am so sad about these two that it has overshadowed the rest of the story for me.
To comfort myself, I like to think that Rye had different options and maybe even plans about his marriage and relationship with Frankie before becoming a POW for years but didn't get to complete them before he was shot down.
I also like to fantasize about his babelicious young wife back in the States having a full blown funeral for him - and being a victim of her time, probably moving on pretty quickly with a new husband and father for her daughter that her dead pilot 5 day husband never met. That is actually more of a realistic scenario in this whole story concept.
Also, I think there is a little flaw in the story in that: there is letter writing from his wife? In a POW torture situation? I don't think so. Weak sauce.
I think the braver choice as an author would have been to let these two find each other again (and so many wonderful ways to do it) - but instead Kristen Hannah chose to twist the knife which I do not appreciate. Some letters from his wife would not change this man's heart after finally getting to be with the amazing love of his life Frankie, literally risking an entire additional tour just to be near her. That is love.
So, fine Kristen Hannah, I will play along that a few letters from his wife of 5 days, in a POW camp for years (impossible) makes this man want to try to love this woman he married as a young clueless pre-war dude (bigger truth here would be maybe the daughter could make him want to try to love someone he doesn't) - all it takes is one night with this very fertile woman and you have got baby number two.
Rye is trapped. A victim of his time. He wants out but it is a mess to get out of.
As he is broken in that prison, (look up how horrifying POWs experiences were) and presumed dead by the world he would also probably think Frankie will move on. She is an incredible hottie with options.
But there she is. He sees her on the tar mac.
HEART BREAKING.
This man is broken. He is not ok. His body is broken. His mind too - there is no way these men are not haunted and struggling.
He will never be allowed to fly a plane again.
The love of your life is single, and free and you are thrown back into a life that you set up when you were someone else entirely - and now you are supposed to be Insta-husband and Insta-Dad with someone you don't love.
He loves Frankie. You can't tell me he doesn't. But he is trapped, and the only one that can set him free is himself, but it would take more courage than it did to be a soldier at the front in Vietnam.
I will never get over how Kristin Hannah described him at the end of their story: "Rye stood there (outside her car at the hospital) looking as destroyed as she felt."
It doesn't end good for Rye. He will think about Frankie for the rest of his life.
I am so sad for him and for them.
I also don't like that Frankie is alone and lonely for so long just to make us feel more pain. The story is painful enough.
Contains: SPOILERS!
(I've got to let this out so I don't get crazy at my in person book club :)
This book starts off so promising with the important and fascinating topic of the women serving in the Vietnam war, but then dissolves into "Days of Our Lives" style drama which unfortunately completely distracted me from the main topic that I think Kristen Hannah wanted to drive home. The story of Frankie and Rye is still haunting me after I finished the book days ago and I have to vent here to try to clear my head.
I don't think Rye means to be a jerk. I think the most heartbreaking and heart wrenching part of this book is that Frankie and Rye cannot be together. I think the two are soul mates. (Controversial I know.) They are bonded by their love and loss of Finlay, their original young attraction and desire, and their experience at the front together that was longer than Rye was even in his new wife's presence.
For me I am most broken about their love story in the facts that:
1. They thought (especially pilots) every day would be their last in that horrible wretched war. So, "seize the day."
2. Reframe Rye as a victim of his time where a young man from a broken unloving home quickly marries an extremely fertile woman before he leaves for YEARS (married for 5 days before deploying - with a hint that she was pregnant before they married - which happened all the freaking time ((hello lack of birth control)) and thought he was doing the right thing, along with "someone to come home to," as many of them did before facing the unexpected.
* I would also like to vent here that aside from lack of birth control I will never ever understand why a women would try to get pregnant or risk it before a deployment like Rye had to face. Or get married for that matter, I could go on and on... (Controversial I know.)
3. Imagine you are young, and then find yourself over there in a horrible bloody terrifying war where you had no idea who you were as a person before facing this (no business getting married that's fo' sho'), and you are now becoming a whole new person quickly, and will never be the same again, serving alongside young people just like you. You will naturally bond with and lean on these fellow service members because no one at home or not serving in this horrifying place will ever be able to completely understand this experience and how different it will make you for the rest of your life.
* Point here: framed in their time period I bet a lot of guys wished they hadn't married before they left (and maybe the wives waiting at home as well) and wished that babies weren't so easy to make - Jamie said as much. (Controversial I know.)
4. Then imagine all those factors, and in the midst of the surreal situation you are in - the person you had your eye on years ago, the one who got away, your best friends beautiful and amazing sister is standing right in front of you in the same experience on the other side of the world.
5. He would NEVER have re-upped if he did not love Frankie. He would have gone home.
Again, I am so sad about these two that it has overshadowed the rest of the story for me.
To comfort myself, I like to think that Rye had different options and maybe even plans about his marriage and relationship with Frankie before becoming a POW for years but didn't get to complete them before he was shot down.
I also like to fantasize about his babelicious young wife back in the States having a full blown funeral for him - and being a victim of her time, probably moving on pretty quickly with a new husband and father for her daughter that her dead pilot 5 day husband never met. That is actually more of a realistic scenario in this whole story concept.
Also, I think there is a little flaw in the story in that: there is letter writing from his wife? In a POW torture situation? I don't think so. Weak sauce.
I think the braver choice as an author would have been to let these two find each other again (and so many wonderful ways to do it) - but instead Kristen Hannah chose to twist the knife which I do not appreciate. Some letters from his wife would not change this man's heart after finally getting to be with the amazing love of his life Frankie, literally risking an entire additional tour just to be near her. That is love.
So, fine Kristen Hannah, I will play along that a few letters from his wife of 5 days, in a POW camp for years (impossible) makes this man want to try to love this woman he married as a young clueless pre-war dude (bigger truth here would be maybe the daughter could make him want to try to love someone he doesn't) - all it takes is one night with this very fertile woman and you have got baby number two.
Rye is trapped. A victim of his time. He wants out but it is a mess to get out of.
As he is broken in that prison, (look up how horrifying POWs experiences were) and presumed dead by the world he would also probably think Frankie will move on. She is an incredible hottie with options.
But there she is. He sees her on the tar mac.
HEART BREAKING.
This man is broken. He is not ok. His body is broken. His mind too - there is no way these men are not haunted and struggling.
He will never be allowed to fly a plane again.
The love of your life is single, and free and you are thrown back into a life that you set up when you were someone else entirely - and now you are supposed to be Insta-husband and Insta-Dad with someone you don't love.
He loves Frankie. You can't tell me he doesn't. But he is trapped, and the only one that can set him free is himself, but it would take more courage than it did to be a soldier at the front in Vietnam.
I will never get over how Kristin Hannah described him at the end of their story: "Rye stood there (outside her car at the hospital) looking as destroyed as she felt."
It doesn't end good for Rye. He will think about Frankie for the rest of his life.
I am so sad for him and for them.
I also don't like that Frankie is alone and lonely for so long just to make us feel more pain. The story is painful enough.
Reader
While not excusing his selfish choices, I think Rye was more complex than that. I think he genuinely loved Frankie and hated himself at the end, with good reason. This was not a happy sociopath. In fact, the biggest plot hole for me was that he chose to “re-up” with her in Vietnam. How did he explain that to his wife?
Kiki
That occurred to me also and I found it very disturbing that Rye would treat his dead friend’s younger sister that way. He was one sick person and preyed upon her vulnerability both in Vietnamese Nam and back home.
Monica Simon
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Kara
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Casey
He made me so mad. I was so swooned by him with Frankie and then the second lie really threw me over. I giess attribute it to a bad up bringing, trauma, and selfishness.
Ariel
Completely agree with Reader below who mentioned the plot hole of him re-upping his service to stay with her. In the end, it makes sense he felt like he had to be loyal to his wife 1) since they had a kid and 2) since she supported him and kept him fighting for his life in Hanoi. But I wish he could have explained all of that to Frankie, and that there could have been some closure between them instead of her being humiliated at the hospital / him turning into such a compulsive liar. I still do believe he did love her, he was just a mess and destroyed by war.
The first lie - him not being married - would maybe be redeemable if he came home and divorced his wife, but it was sad to see he was comfortable keeping Frankie the other woman when he thought so highly of her / was her main motivator for going to war and wanting to make a difference. I really hate that I ended up wishing his story did end with him dying :( but ultimately Frankie still needed to be the one to pull her out of her PTSD and save herself.
The first lie - him not being married - would maybe be redeemable if he came home and divorced his wife, but it was sad to see he was comfortable keeping Frankie the other woman when he thought so highly of her / was her main motivator for going to war and wanting to make a difference. I really hate that I ended up wishing his story did end with him dying :( but ultimately Frankie still needed to be the one to pull her out of her PTSD and save herself.
Michele
A leopard doesn’t change its spots. We knew who he was when she met him at her brother’s sendoff. We wanted to believe he’d changed when they met again.
There are so many parallels to this in real life and Kristin Hannah does a good job with painting the reality of so much throughout the book.
She does leave an opening for a HEA at the end.
There are so many parallels to this in real life and Kristin Hannah does a good job with painting the reality of so much throughout the book.
She does leave an opening for a HEA at the end.
judith
Good question. I don't think Rye's war experiences had anything to do with it, that's who he was even when he seemed to care about Fin & Frankie. His life in Nam was one big lie, & he lived only for the day, then continued that back in the states. Narcissist or sociopath, take your pick?
Rainey Williams
Dang I forgot he was good friends with her brother. That makes it even so much worse
Mackenzie Ichimura
I dunno, but I wished Frankie would have told his wife what he did later on. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Then again, maybe his wife wouldn't have had anywhere else to go, seeing as how a lot of women still held traditional roles back then.
Gloria
There are sociopaths in the world !
Carrie Cohen
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
S J O
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Nancy Steiner
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Lisa Brand
Thank you JEM. I just finished the book yesterday and while I enjoyed it, was really bothered by this subplot and you helped me understand why.
Corinne
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
Nadi
This answer contains spoilers…
(view spoiler)
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more
Jul 01, 2025 10:37AM · flag
Jul 02, 2025 04:07PM · flag