Full review at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books 
 A Town Like Alice is a classic romance (among other things), by Nevil Shute. It was published in 1950, and reflects the bias and prejudices of its time, but it's also a powerful book about a smart, tough, resourceful young woman. If you really want to go into this spoiler free, don't read the plot synopsis below - but I'm not telling you anything you can't deduce from the front and back covers of the book or the plot description on Amazon. 
 A Town Like Alice is really three stories. Jean Paget, a young woman living in England after WWII, is left a great deal of money by a distant relative. After some thought, she decides to use some of this money to build a well in a village in Malaysia. She tells her solicitor why she wants to do this, and this flashback story of her life as a prisoner of war forms the first part of the book. 
 This isn't a long book, but there's just so much in it to unpack. A lot of it is horribly sad. Jean is taken prisoner along with several other women and children. There's no camp for women, so they are marched all over the country. Over half of them die, and that includes many of the children, and yes it's absolutely awful. What makes it bearable is the incredible resilience of the survivors, and the tactics Jean uses to finally put an end to the marching and make some kind of safe haven for the remaining prisoners. Jean can't make miracles but she's very good at seizing opportunities. 
 Shute's books are not revolutionary or visionary. What seems to interest him as an author is the heroism of the ordinary person. Often his books start off quite boring - A Town Like Alice kicks off with a description of the solicitor's life in London, which is fantastically dull. I believe he does this on purpose, to show that heroes come from the most mundane backgrounds and settings. Jean herself doesn't think of herself as heroic despite having saved seventeen lives. "I only did what anybody could have done," she tells an admirer, who answers: "That's as it may be...The fact is, that you did it." 
 - Carrie S.