Book Review: A Town Like Alice

A Town Like Alice
By Nevil Schute
277 pages
Finished 11/28/08

Summary:

A Town Like Alice tells of a young woman who miraculously survived a Japanese “death march” in World War II, and of an Australian soldier, also a prisoner of war, who offered to help her–even at the cost of his life.

This is one of those “don’t judge a book by its cover” reads. My SIL Carla sent me home with a huge bag of books to read several months ago, and I kept putting this one aside based on the fact that it just didn’t look that appealing. The pitifully short summary on the back of the book didn’t help much either. But, I did find this book to be quite enjoyable. The first half of the book, when you follow the main character Jean through her experience during WWII, really captured my attention. I found that the writing stimulated my imagination, and I had so many images of what things looked like as they took place. The last half of the book was enjoyable as well, but did seem to be a little long-winded….at times I felt like the author could have landed at his destination without including so many day-by-day details of the characters’ lives. But, all in all, I was happy with the way this book turned out–much better than my expectations held!

2008 Page Count: 9411