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Content snapshot
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Violence
A lot
World War II atrocities; Japanese occupation violence; public execution described
Language
Barely any
Mild language; wartime narrative
Sexual Content
Barely any
Romantic but not explicit; a chaste love story with deeply earned emotion
Substance Use
Barely any
Minimal
Emotional Intensity
A lot
Survival trauma; bearing witness to atrocity; the long shadow of war on the human capacity for joy
What this book is about
Jean Paget is among a group of women and children who march through Japanese-occupied Malaya for years after the fall of Singapore. The Australian soldier Joe Harman risks everything to help them — and pays a devastating price. Their reunion, years later in the Australian outback, is one of the great romantic resolutions in 20th-century fiction.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Wartime violence and atrocity
Execution scene
Reader Verification
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