A Town Like Alice

About a month ago, I came across a list of the top 100 books put out by the BBC (you can find the list here). One of the books on the list was A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute, which I had never heard of before. A few days later, I was visiting my local library and discovered the book on the librarians' choice bookshelf. Once I discovered that it took place in Australia, I was really excited to read it and checked it out (I loved reading The Thorn Birds last year).

The book can be divided into two parts. The first half takes place during World War II as the main character Jean Paget is forced to participate in a Japanese death march with other English female prisoners of war across the Malay peninsula. The second half takes place in Australia and follows the romance between Jean and Joe Harman, an Australian soldier she met during the war. The title of the book comes from Paget's desire to create a "town like Alice" (Alice Springs).

Some of the things I loved about the book:

• Learning about such an interesting (and sad) part of history — the Japanese death march. Shute writes in a note at the end of the book that a death march similar to the one in the book did take place but in Sumatra, not Malaya.
• The Australian setting. It was amazing to catch a glimpse of what life was like in rural Australia in the 1950s.
• Jean Paget. She was such a strong female character who seemed to be able to do anything she set her mind to doing.
• The beautiful love story between Jean and Joe. It was wonderful to read a story with an old-fashioned love story.