Is Millie callous or a fierce survivor? Do you see her as a manipulative wife and mother or a woman trying to protect her family?

Millie is a fierece survivor using a technique that many do, i.e. building a 'brick' wall around herself to keep any more hurt from entering her life and heart.

I agree. She is a fierce survivor. She can't really face her feelings about Pete, so she just barges ahead with her life. I think the love she feels for Al grows slowly, but it grows. There is a great deal of love in this book.

I agree with Hulananni and Naomib that Millie is a fierce survivor. She reminds me of the old expressions "we must cut our coat to fit the cloth" or "we must play the hand we are dealt." She didn't want Pete to die, but once he did that part of her life was closed off to her. Millie only looked forward. Marrying Al so quickly was one of the few options available to her. Given that women were expected to give up their jobs to the returning vets, and that she wasn't trained for any sort of profession, marriage was the only solution to raising her family. She did the best she could with what she had. And I think she was a good wife to Al and, overall, a good mother to her children.

Same here, I go with fierce survivor. She can't live her life grieving over Pete. She was sad an appropriate amount - I think - of time, then she had to move on and make a new life for herself. She deserved to be happy again.

I think most people would agree that Millie is a survivor. People grieve in different ways. Millie had learned early in her life that terrible things can happen to good people. She had no choice but to soldier on after the death of her parents. It's not difficult to imagine that she built a protective shell around herself after her parents' death. Her reaction to Pete's death can certainly be expected. I felt Millie was really quite a brave character who was only trying to protect herself and her son.

I agree that Millie is a survivor. She feels grief, but she chooses to go on with life. She has developed necessary coping skills through other hardships in her life. Based on the experiences of her life, it appears to me she had only two choices: develop some serious survival skills or be crushed by circumstance. I think it's admirable when people are able to cope with terrible hardship and tragedy. We all know someone who appears to be "hardened", but upon further exploration is really just trying to survive the circumstances of his or her life.

Millie was a survivor. All these women were pretty tough; they had to be. They dealt with the realities of life and got on with it how ever they had to.