Sue Halpern

Digital audiobook performed by Josh Bloomberg, Dara Rosenberg and Allyson Ryan
4****

Three people running from their past (or present) find the help they need at the library. Kit is the head librarian at the Riverton, NH library; she likes the peace she finds there and the ability to hide from her disastrous past. Fifteen-year-old Sunny has been home-schooled (or “no-schooled” as she sometimes refers to it), and assigned to work for the summer at the library in lieu of a sentence for show more shoplifting a dictionary. Rusty is a former Wall Street hedge-fund star, now out of work and seeking answers to his mother’s past as he laboriously researches the libraries historical archives. Slowly they are drawn together and help one another unravel their pasts and seek their futures.

I confess that I hadn’t really read the jacket blurb so I was expecting a chick-lit, light romantic story. This is definitely NOT that. Halperin drew me in, however. The secrets are revealed every so slowly throughout the book, much as you might only reveal such information to a friend over time as you got to know and trust her.

Kit’s is the most troubling to her. She was fully aware of the events that led her to flee to Riverton with a new name and to make a new – QUIET – life. But she’s a strong, determined woman and as closed off as she appears to be, she is compassionate and caring.

Rusty spends his days at the library researching the town’s history. He’s a stranger in town and an enigma: driving a fancy car, with obviously expensive clothes, but living in a small motel and in obvious need of a haircut. An old bank passbook he had found among his deceased mother’s possessions, is what has brought him to Riverton, in hopes of perhaps finding a nest egg of cash to see him through, and possibly some answers to his questions about his mother’s past.

In Sunny’s case, of course, she doesn’t even know there is a secret that her parents hide with their “hippie” lifestyle. But once she gets a glimpse at a different possibility, she is tenacious in ferreting out the truth, facing it and forcing her parents to face it as well. I really loved her character and how she developed over the summer.

The novel is told in alternating view points as each of the three central characters reveals his or her back story and experiences in current time. The first time there was a “flashback” it caught me off guard, but I quickly grew used to the style. Halperin gives us a wonderful cast of supporting characters as well. From Sunny’s mother, Willow, to a group of octogenarians known collectively as “The Four” and the rest of the library staff, these characters help and support one another. There are moments of humor and love to counterbalance the stress and heartache. I’d love a sequel to find out how they all fair in coming years.

The audiobook is performed by a trio of talented voice artists, each voicing one of the central characters. This was very effective for the changing view points in narration. Job well done! show less

Halpern's [Summer Hours at the Robbers Library] falls into a category of novels that I have come to value and even cherish. Well-written and intelligent domestic fiction isn't as easy to come by as I'd like. This sort of novel does not fall into light fiction nor would not call it literary fiction either as there is no experimenting with form. The goal here is to create strong characters placed in 'situations' that without some slam-bang plot will lead you to turn the pages in order to find show more out what choices these characters will make. Very often, in this type of novel, the worst has happened already and the main character is struggling to come to terms and move on. In this case, Kit Sweeney betrayed by her husband and his family has left her old life to make a new one as a librarian in a mid-sized town in New Hampshire that has seen better days but continues to limp along. In this new life she is supremely defended, living alone, refusing all social interaction beyond work, determined never to be hurt by having expectations of people again, especially men. Along come two characters the summer of her fourth year in her cocoon--fifteen-year old Sunny who has to work in the library as penance for having tried to steal a dictionary from the bookstore at the mall and Rusty, a former bond trader in New York who lost his job and everything he owned when his company (and many others) failed in the mid 2000's. He has come to the town trying to solve a family mystery. There isn't so much plot as snowballing events. I value this type of fiction highly because, as Kit herself says at one point, books can save a life. There have been many times when losing myself in a story about familiar people not unlike me is exactly the medicine I need to cope. This is a novel to keep handy for a busy or difficult time when it will soothe and entertain and gently enlighten. I read it in the space between Christmas and New Year's and it was exactly what I needed to feel grounded again. **** show less

I spent the first 2/3 or so of this book just hoping that when the big reveal(s) came I wouldn't be too disappointed. It becomes clear early on that something, probably something tragic, happened to Kit at some point, and that something shady is going on with Sunny's family, but for quite some time there really aren't any clues as to what. In Kit's case, I wasn't disappointed at all. What happened to her is sufficiently dramatic to make her current circumstances realistic, but not overblown. show more Not only that, but the course of learning her backstory side-by-side with her ongoing story made her a more sympathetic character.

Sunny's story isn't as well done, unfortunately. After being half revealed, the mystery is left to lie fallow until nearly the end of book, at which point it is hastily revealed and even more hastily resolved. In Sunny's case, though, the mystery has more to do with her parents, and it's really her journey of learning who her parents really are and figuring out how to deal with that knowledge that makes for compelling reading.

None of the characters in this book are particularly three-dimensional, but Halpern writes so well about how they fit together, that it almost doesn't matter. Every time I opened this book a felt like I was walking into the grand old library in washed-up Riverton, NH, about to meet my own good friends. show less

I was in the mood for a gentle, general fiction story and got one with this book, but for a gentle story it packed a wallop.

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library is a story about three broken people who are thrown together over a summer in the Carnegie library of a dead industrial town. Sunny is a 16 year old no-schooled daughter of hippies (or as they call themselves 'alternatives') sentenced to a 12 weeks stint at the library after getting caught trying to steal a dictionary from a local show more bookstore. Rusty is the enigmatic businessman who suddenly shows up one day and spends ever subsequent day in front of one of the computers for hours at a stretch. Kit is the reference librarian who starts off coming across as an extreme introvert at best, a future agoraphobic at worst. She moved to Riverton 4 years previous to the story and her one, over arching goal is to avoid all non-work human interaction.

The story is told over the course of a summer post the global financial disaster, and is interspersed with Kit's therapeutic narrative of her past; a slow building story that starts off feeling oh-so-predictable, but by the end set me back on my heels muttering jesus under my breath. I was pretty sure I didn't like Kit - or, more accurately, that I respected Kit - until the end. Then, I understood; I'd have done almost nothing differently, in her shoes.

I liked Sunny and her story felt so very authentic; her ending might have been a little too perfectly tailored, and I think the author could have packed a double wallop had she chose a different path, but I still enjoyed her character.

Rusty felt a little obligatory - probably the least impactful story of the three, but for the time this book was set, his character was representative, and for all that his redemption was a bit too easily found, I still liked him too. Mostly, I appreciated the author's choice not to go the predictable angst-ridden route.

I started this review thinking "4 stars" but really... that ending. The author deserves the extra 1/2 star because she led me perfectly, exactly like a well written story should.

The perfect read for a breezy, sunny, lazy day. show less