A Town Like Alice

I like these kinds of stories very much. I’ve already finished reading over 10 books, I ranked this book in the third-best. (I ranked Cinderella man as the best. The second is The merchant in Venice. )
This is a story during world war 2nd. Jean is a heroine in this book. At first she spent happy time living in Malaya, but after world war 2nd, her life was completely changed. People who lived in Malaya were captured by Japanese soldiers, and they had to march aimlessly. The first half of this story, I felt sore because Japanese give them cruel treatment. As I’m one of Japanese, it was really a pity.
I love the last part of the story, the happy ending. She got a big heritage from her uncle. She made a well in Malaya for people who took care of Jean. In chapter 14, Jean was informed by an old man that Joe was alive. It was big news for her and she went to see him to Willstown in Australia. When she lived in Willstown to wait for him, she knew she could not live in Willstown happily and if she married Joe, she would want to live somewhere else. But, she changed her mind. She wanted to make the town better place like Alice Town. I was deeply impressed by her mind that she wanted to make town better place. In fact, she opened shoes factory, a milk-bar, a swimming pool and so on. Usually, people tend to move their place if they find their place uncomfortable, but she didn’t. I love her thoughts and I would like to make our town or our country better place as she did like Willstown. Oops, I don’t have rich family or rich relatives....., but I would have a chance to win lottery like Joe. ：）

By the way, I checked the place “Willstown” by Wikipedia. “Willstown” is a fictional place, but it is reportedly based on Burketown, Queensland, which the arther also visited in 1948. And Burke and Wills were well-known explorers of Australia. Isn’t it interesting fact?