Summer Hours at the Robbers Library

Summer Hours at the Robbers Library by Sue Halpern is a very highly recommended novel about second chances and family. It surprised me how much I loved this gracefully written contemporary, charming novel with its distinctive characters.

Kit is the reference librarian at the Carnegie Library (called the "Robbers" Library based on the name of a local tycoon, Robers, who promoted it) in Riverton, NH. Kit has moved here four years ago to escape her past and wants nothing more than a peaceful, quiet, secluded life that revolves around working at the library. She often thinks of her therapist, Dr. Bondi, and what he has said to her in the past and would currently say about situations.

Sunny (Solstice) is an fifteen-year-old who is arrested for show more shoplifting a dictionary. She is sentenced to community service at the library for the summer. Sunny is un-schooled and the only child of her living-off-the-grid hippy parents. Her community service at the library opens up a new world to her and she eagerly attaches herself to Kit.

Rusty is a former Wall Street investor who lost his job. He has come to Riverton looking for an old bank account that belonged to his mom and should be worth some money now. He is at the library everyday using the computer to do research. Rusty eventually joins the group of four retired men who come to the library every morning to read the papers and drink coffee. He also begins to connect with Kit and Sunny.

These three unique individuals begin to form an uneasy friendship and connection as their stories are slowly told through alternating chapters. Kit's story is more complicated than the others and the larger backstory that begs to be told after the opening chapter. Sunny's story is based more on her parent's decisions and how they have impacted her life. Rusty is, obliviously, trying to find a new direction to his life after he lost his previous job.

Halpern has made all these characters appealing and compelling. I liked the narrative switching between the character's stories and found them equally compelling. I wanted to know what happened to them and see healing for them in the future. I loved the empathy given to the life of all these characters and the insight into their situations. I also loved the grace they gave each other, as they tried to understand and help each other. These are beautifully captured characters. (I saved quotes that I won't share due to spoilers, but there was so much insight and wisdom in them.)

The plot starts out at an even pace covering the background of the characters (but not Kit's entire story until later) before picking up the drama. The biggest complement I can give is that I was looking forward to sitting down and reading it and felt happy and satisfied when the novel concluded. While there was drama and conflicts, in the end this novel that left me feeling happy that recovery from traumatic events can happen and family can be chosen. And I loved the sheer love of reading and books that permeates the novel, along with the line of poetry from a notable poet that opens each chapter.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
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I enjoyed this read because the characters were likeable; sweet, smart, caring but vulnerable as we all are to the circumstances and events of our lives. Using a small town library as the nexus for most of the characters to meet, learn about and communicate with each other was brilliant. I believe libraries should help connect the people of the community, help us learn and care about each other and the world. And offer books, other media, and programs which support a more direct and less impersonal approach.

Riverton, New Hampshire is portrayed as both the town you grew up in and the town one happened upon after leaving a previous (usually unpleasant) life behind. Halpern cleverly makes this deteriorated town a character in its own show more right; further emphasizing the importance of community and caring. (Perhaps sending a message to those that leave not to give up on their home towns.)

I love that there were no villiains just regular folk trying to make the most of their lives. Not surprisinly the one person who is fleeing the law is not a villain... in my book.

Read and enjoy! 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 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 show more 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 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 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 show more 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

When teenaged Sunny is caught trying to steal a dictionary, the judge decides to make the punishment fit the crime - she is sentenced to 40 hours of community service at the local Riverton library. She is assigned to shadow Kit, the librarian, a very private woman who has no desire to form personal relationships and certainly not with Kit. And then there's Rusty, a new patron who has arrived in Riverton on his own quest and with no intentions of staying once he finds (or doesn't find) what he's looking for. The three of them thought they were fine, perhaps even better, alone and had no plans to form friendships but, as Robbie Burns once said 'the best laid plans...'

Okay, I'm a sucker for books about book or libraries or, well, anything show more book-related and Summer Hours at the Robbers Library is this in spades. It is a well-written tale about relationships with quirky characters who made me care about them. If I had any quarrel with it, it was that it seems to wrap up a bit too quickly and smoothly at the end but this didn't make me enjoy the story any less. Loved it!

Thanks to Edelweiss+ and Harper Perennial for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review show less

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 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 show more 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

Kit is in Riverton because she needed to get away from everything that happened before, including her name. Sunny is at the library because she tried to steal a dictionary. Rusty is in pursuit of a fortune that may or may not exist. However it is they found each other, the road to their friendship seems destined, but not smooth.

This was a little bit of a slow start, but the story picked up as the back stories for each character developed. Riverton is well-represented as one of those tiny New England towns that time forgot. Well written and relatable.