The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted by Robert Hillman
Source: NetGalley and Text Publishing
Rating: 2½/5 stars

**MINI-REVIEW**

The Bottom Line: As my star rating suggests, I only liked half of this book and that half was any part which involved only Tom Hope. Tom Hope is one of the most sympathetic characters I have read in a very long time and I liked him from the moment he was introduced. Through no fault of his own, Tom has experienced a great deal of bad in his relatively young life. Consequently, Tom has become a rather solitary figure preferring to spend his time on his farm among the woollies rather than in the company of humans. That is, until he meets Hannah Babel, and this is where my enjoyment of this novel ends. Please believe me when I say, I wanted to like Hannah and certainly had a great deal of sympathy for her situation (especially the past!), but her general attitude and refusal to confront and deal with her problems caused her to come across as selfish and self-centered which caused a great deal of unnecessary pain for Tom Hope. Outside of my intense dislike of Hannah, I have no other complaints regarding this book. In fact, outside of that one issue, I rather enjoyed Tom’s story, the setting (both the farm and the bookshop), and the issues that continually arose in Tom Hope’s life. Outside of that single character, I found the plot and writing to be quite good. As for a recommendation, I suspect I am in the minority where Hannah is concerned and since I liked all other aspects of the read, I am going to go ahead and recommend this book to readers.

Set in Australia, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted tells the story of Tom, a lonely man who’s been unlucky in love. Tom is a sheep farmer who lives a contented, quiet life, until his wife Trudy deserts him and takes away Peter, the son of his heart if not his body. When Tom meets Hannah, it’s like he gets a new ray of sunshine in his life, and the two form a passionate, unbreakable bond. But Hannah’s past haunts her in ways Tom can’t quite understand, and when Peter reenters their lives, it may be more than Hannah can stand.

The story is truly affecting in parts, and I came to love Tom quite a lot. He’s sweet and good and loving, although he does seem to allow himself to roll with the punches rather than standing up to the people and events that hurt him. Tom’s relationship with Peter is lovely, so when he’s taken away, it is a heart-breaking development. The story of Peter’s experiences at “Jesus Camp” is horrible — he’s essentially trapped there by a mother who’s caught up in pastor’s cult-like community, and I was really upset by Peter’s suffering and the length of time it takes for him to finally be rescued.

We hear about Hannah’s past through chapters scattered throughout the book that show her experiences in the concentration camp and the years afterward. Of course, she’s deserving of great sympathy, but there are times with Tom and Peter that’s it hard to like her.

Overall, this is a quiet and moving book. I loved the descriptions of Tom’s farm and the Australian setting and landscapes. The writing is slow and underspoken, with a brevity that somehow makes the emotion harder to access at times. The juxtaposition of ranch life in Australia and memories of the Holocaust makes for an unusual mix, but it works. The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is an unusual work of historical fiction, definitely worth checking out.

I was drawn to this book for a few reasons - mostly because it is different from what I normally read. Since reading Picnic at Hanging Rock I've wanted to read more Australian literature. The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is set in Australia and is by an Australian author. I also wanted to read different time periods since I mostly stick to the present day, 1920s, and 1940s. This novel takes place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

One of the first things I noticed about this book was the languid, almost lazy pace of the story. It was probably due to my having just finished the quite intense thriller Saving Meghan. It was a refreshing pace, without being boring. In fact, you knew that this would be a profound read and that you needed to savor each and every word.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted would be the perfect book to read in a hammock with a glass of lemonade on a beautiful spring day.

While this book is different from what I normally read, it wasn't a complete departure. Hannah, the bookshop owner, is a Jew from Budapest. She had survived Auschwitz, though none of the rest of her family did. There are a few chapters sprinkled throughout that are flashbacks to her past.

I found Hannah to be an interesting character. Her disbelief in Tom, the main character, not knowing about Auschwitz or really much about the war in Europe. It parallelled my disbelief after having a conversation with an Indian that was unfamiliar with D-Day. But as Tom points out, their war was in the Pacific theater. And I've come to discover I know little about WWII in the Pacific. Also, I haven't read much about what happened to Jews after the liberation of the camps so it is interesting to see the continuing impact on her life. Another thing I found interesting about her is that she isn't truly anti-communism/anti-Soviet rule. There is mention of the Vietnam War and she did live for a time in Budapest under Soviet control. Her immigration to Australia seemed to have more to do with wanting to get away from the memories rather than oppression under communism.

I liked Tom. He is well-liked by everyone and always willing to help others. He doesn't seem to be very ambitious. He does work hard, but it seems like he is keeping up the farm more out of some sort commitment to his late Uncle Frank, rather than to be successful himself. Though he is successful. He's happy with his life on the farm (or sheep station) with his woolies, blind horse, old dog, and orchards. He's happy until his wife leaves him. Then he is happy again when she returns, not so much because he's happy she has returned but rather because of the child she brings with her. He's not Tom's child, but that makes no difference to Tom. Being a good father is truly something Tom wants to succeed at. But I don't think he realized that until Trudy leaves again and eventually takes Peter with her.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is in turns about profound love and profound loss; grieving and healing. I think that this will be a book that I think about for years to come. It will be one of those books that will pop to the forefront of my mind when I least expect it but will provide insight into whatever the current situation is. I feel like a better person for having read this book.

Review will publish at Girl Who Reads on Friday, April 12.

I’ve tried a couple times to read this book and it’s just hard to read. The language is so stilted and I don’t understand what’s being said a lot of the time. I’m not faulting the author for using the words she does, but it just isn’t translating easily for me. I don’t want to spend a ton of energy deciphering what’s being said. I am also not a fan of how the word Jesus is being thrown around. The original synopsis didn’t talk about his wife joining a Jesus Camp because I probably would not have requested the book if it had. While I’ve read other reviews that say this group is a cult, I just don’t like the use of Jesus in the title without plainly stating early on that it’s a cult. I made it 15% of the way through and as a Christian I just don’t like it. I just find myself taking offense and I don’t think it’s meant to be that way. I just don’t think this book is meant for me. So I’m not going to finish this book but wanted to give my feedback to you. Because I didn’t completely finish the book I won’t be posting this review or star rating on any outside sites.

Wow. I can't wait for my patrons to get their hands on this title. Not only does it incorporate personal history and "baggage" in a way in which we can all relate, it does so in such a beautiful and poignant manner. You find yourself rooting for the characters and believing in the power of love and redemption.

This book was an unexpected delight. I loved the transitions between the past and the present. Tom and Hannah are such an unlikely pair that their love story is that much more captivating. From the first time that Tom saw Hannah, he was captivated and intrigued. What could am Australian farmer and a well-read, well-educated European woman have in common? They find something in each other that heals their broken hearts. This book was easy to read and unlike any other Holocaust fiction that I have read.

This book was nothing like what I expected, but it was a good story set in post WWII Australia. The characters of Tom and Hannah are complex and they all have their issues, they are mostly just trying to survive. Hannah is haunted by her war memories and losses, Yet they are able to go on together and open a bookstore in a place where people are too busy farming to read.

Interesting story set in a seemingly idyllic little Australian town in 1960s filled with lovable characters. The author's writing style seems terse at times, but never stingy with magnificent descriptions of the place. A million heartbreaks will unfold as you read, but love and perseverance are really the main themes of this book.

This quixotic little book had me at hello. Set in Australia in the 1960s, it tells a story of love, loss, and redemption in a way that I’ve never seen anywhere from anybody. I’ve finished reading other books since I finished this one, and yet I am still thinking about Tom Hope.

Huge thanks go to Net Galley and Putnam Penguin for the review copy. It will be available to the public April 9, 2019.

At the outset, Tom’s last name seems cruelly ironic, because the guy can’t seem to catch a break. Trudy, his perpetually dissatisfied wife, up and leaves him with no warning and no discussion. Just takes off. Tom is heartsick, but a ranch is still a ranch, and so he woodenly goes through all of the tasks—milk the cow, herd the woollies—that must be done. He is such a sad fellow, and he berates himself for not having done more to make that woman happy and comfortable. The ranch is not long on frills; an indoor shower would be nice, and a big old bathtub would be even better.

He actually makes lists.

But then one day Trudy comes back. She’s been gone for a whole year, and now she’s pregnant. Say what?
When Tom takes her back, I look at the things he has said and done and wonder whether he is maybe a little on the simple side. But just as the question takes hold in my mind, we hear people in town talking about him. One of them tells another that after all, Tom Hope is not a stupid man. And so again I wonder why he lets her back in the house. But he does. He welcomes her. Sssh, he says to her self-recriminations, don’t worry about it. You’re back now.

Trudy has the baby, and then Jesus calls her and she leaves again—without the baby. So there’s Tom. You can see what I mean about that last name. Hope? What good has hope done for him so far? He’s stuck raising an infant while he runs a ranch, and it’s exhausting, nearly impossible, but he adores this little boy that isn’t his, just loves him for years, right up until the time Trudy decides that Jesus has called Peter to come to the religious compound with her.

So when the flamboyant Hannah, a woman older than himself, a Hungarian immigrant, comes to town and decides she likes the looks of Tom, all I can think is, thank goodness. Let the poor man have a life post-Trudy and post-Peter. There’s nothing like a fresh start. But Hannah comes with baggage of her own, a refugee who’s experienced the horror of Auschwitz.

Before I requested access to this novel, the Holocaust reference in the description very nearly kept me away. Younger readers less familiar with this historical war crime need to know about it. The survivors are mostly dead and gone, and there are revisionists trying to deny it, or to say that stories of it are greatly exaggerated. So yes, there’s a need for its inclusion in new literature, and yet I feel as if I have had my fill. But the other piece of it—Tom, the ranch, the child, the romance—won the day, and I am so glad I decided to go for it. And indeed, it’s not a Holocaust story; instead, we see how the horror through which Hannah has lived informs her present day choices.

So yes, Hannah is an interesting character, and the bookshop is hers, but the story is really about Tom. One heartache after another comes his way, and he deals with every single one uncomplainingly, telling those that love him that he’s fine. Really. At times I want to push my way into the pages to say to him, what the hell? Go ahead and throw some dishes or something. You are entitled to your anger. But instead, he forges stolidly on, not because he is free of pain—we can tell that he isn’t—but because there’s no use in burdening others as well. And as one violent act after another works its way into his experience, the story builds, and builds some more, and we have to wonder when he will draw the line and say, that’s it. Enough. And the way Tom develops from the outset to the end is so resonant, so believable.

This novel is one of the warmest, most affectionately told stories that I have read in a long time. It’s never mawkish or overly sentimental; Hillman strikes the perfect balance. I would read more of his work in a heartbeat, and I highly recommend it to you. If you can find it at a discount, that’s great, but if you have to pay full cover price, you won’t be disappointed.

I don't care for books that make me feel bad about myself and that's what this book did. I felt bad because I didn't like Hannah, one of the main characters in the book. I know I was supposed to because she was a survivor of Auschwitz and unspeakable tragedies but I didn't. Does being a survivor mean that everything has to go the way you want without the consideration of other people for the rest of your life? That's what Hannah thinks.

After her release in WWII and a brief marriage to a weird second husband, Hannah moves to Australia to open a book store. With no regard what rural Australia might want to read, she stocks it with Russian classics and then rails against the town because they don't rush to buy them. She hires Tom, a handyman and nice guy, to build shelves. He has read exactly one book in his life and she gives him [book:Crime and Punishment|7144] as his second. Really? Tom has a sad past with a truly screwy wife who runs off with the young boy they have been raising to a "Jesus Camp".

The boy suffers there and wants to come back to Tom. Hannah, now Tom's wife, refuses to take him back. How the situation resolves will break your heart. This would have been a better book if I liked Hannah better but it will pull your heartstrings.

Thanks to Net Galley for a copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.

Thank you to NetGalley, G.P. Putnam’s Sons and Robert Hillman for an ARC ebook copy to review. As always, an honest review from me.

My rating is 3.5 stars, but since there isn't half stars I always round up.

Like:
- Set in 2 different time periods in history: WW2 and 1960s Australia
- Features people learning to cope with and enjoy life after losing people they love

Love:
- Story features a woman opening a bookstore - a book about books is always awesome!
- Hearing about a strong woman starting her own business - there’s something fascinating about hearing about her process

Dislike:
- The heartbreak

Wish that:
- The ending didn’t wrap up as quickly - another 20 pages would have been great

Overall, an interesting book that focused on character development after loss and how one navigates life.

Australian rancher Tom Hope is a good man who takes care of those he loves, but for various reasons seems to lose them. But that doesn't keep him from doing the right thing ... and hoping that maybe things will work out in the end.

A character-driven story that is slow and thoughtful and moving.

This is an unexpectedly complex story about a man who navigates his way through a world of hurt, cruelty, and pain guided principally by his fundamental decency and tendency to give unconditional love.

The book begins in rural Victoria, Australia in the late 1960s. The appropriately named Tom Hope has a small farm with sheep and orchards, the management of which satisfied him but bored his new wife Trudy, who left him after less than two years. A year later, she not only returned, but was pregnant. Tom of course took her in, and loved and nourished the son Peter she had, especially since Trudy lacked interest in much of anything or anyone. Inevitably she became restless again, this time going off to join a “Jesus Camp” and leaving Peter with Tom. (She declare that while Jesus Christ had called <em>her</em>, he had not called Peter, at least for the time being.) After two years, Trudy wrote Tom that Jesus indeed demanded she bring Peter to be with her. Tom had no legal recourse but to comply.

Tom was heartbroken, but eventually began a relationship with (the also appropriately named) multilingual Hannah Babel, a flamboyant Jewish woman who wanted to open a bookshop in the town.

Tom became smitten with Hannah, and Hannah could not resist Tom’s simple and reliable nobility. They soon began living together. In the meantime, Peter was being treated brutally at Jesus Camp and tried to come back to Tom, but Tom had to return him since he had no legal claim on him.

Hannah, originally from Hungary, survived Auschwitz, about which Tom knew nothing - he had never paid much attention to history, much less the news, and the whole idea of the Holocaust was unfathomable to him. After she told him about all the murders, he responded, “But why, in heaven’s name?” Hannah had no answers for him. She could not bring herself to recount all the pain that underlay her past, and informed her decisions in the present. One of those decisions was never again to risk loving a child. She lost her young son at Auschwitz - he went “up the chimney” of the gas chambers.

If she stopped grieving, she thought, the Nazis had won. And if she loved a child again, would it not be disloyal to her son?

Thus Hannah was adamantly opposed to the presence of Peter in their lives. It shouldn’t have been an issue, because Trudy had taken Peter away. But Trudy was unpredictable, and we learn that the situation at the camp for “Jesus” had become a nightmare.

Before long, the powerful forces of pain and hurt come up against the redemptive promise of love, but it is not clear which of the driving emotions will prevail.

Evaluation: The talented Australian author Robert Hillman won the National Biography Award for his 2004 memoir The Boy in the Green Suit, but I had not read his work before this poignant, absorbing story. The author exposes so many dimensions of love and loss, and weaves them together so deftly, that you will find yourself spending hours contemplating their subtle interactions. Even the animals on Tom’s farm receive nuanced portraits. I was so touched by the story, and so impressed by the author’s deftness. Highly recommended.

While the heart of this story is interesting, and much of the writing is lovely, I feel it really could have done with another edit. The first half seemed well told, but the last half felt choppy to me, almost like several vignettes cobbled together. Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title. #thebookshopofthebrokenhearted. #NetGalley

This Bookshop of the Broken Hearted tells the stories of three people: Tom, an Australian farmer, Hannah, a Hungarian Jewish woman, and Peter, Tom's ex-wife's son. The story begins immediately after Trudy left him the first time, leaving behind what could barely even be called a note to explain herself. After her return followed by a second departure, enter a new small son to take care of as a single parent who also has a farm to worry about, followed by Hannah, who survived Auschwitz and might be the craziest person Tom knows. "He had accepted that Hannah was a fruitcake. But that didn't ruin his liking for her."

In this book you'll find a small Australian town, farm life, a World War Two experience, Jesus Camp, the struggle of a parent and child who want to be together even though the legal system says they don't have the right to decide, love, loss, and a bookstore. I got into this story more than I originally thought I would; I liked the writer's easy, although sometimes sparse, writing style and the moving story of these characters and the trials they endured. Every once in awhile I had to say wait - and go back and check if the current chapter was taking place in the "now" of the story or in a flashback, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Tom Hope is a good man. He is kind. He is reliable. Unfortunately, he is also unlucky in love. His first wife leaves him twice, foists an illegitimate child on him, and then snatches that child away after Tom grew to love him. But The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted, by Robert Hillman, is not the story of Tom’s first marriage. Instead, it is the story of his second marriage and the long healing it provides for himself and his Holocaust-scarred wife, Hannah Babel.

I had requested this book so long ago from NetGalley that I had forgotten it was a Holocaust book. The first chapters didn’t do much to remind me, as they open on the last weeks of Tom’s troubled marriage on his farm somewhere in Victoria, Australia, in 1962. Tom frets and broods at his farm, wondering what he might have done to keep his first wife while trying to take care of her child, Peter. He broods even more when, after Peter turns five, his first wife reclaims the boy and whisks him away to a repressive Christian community south of Melbourne.

The only things that finally shakes Tom out of his funk are his determination to start dating again and his fortuitous meeting with Hannah Babel shortly after he makes that decision. Hannah has arrived in Hometown, the biggest settlement near Tom’s farm, to launch a bookstore. Hannah’s quirky joie de vivre brings Tom back to full life. Before long, the two are lovers. Then they are engaged. They’re married before the halfway point of the novel; this book is truly a whirlwind.

The only fly in the ointment is Peter’s situation. The boy is desperately unhappy with the Christians. He’s been singled out for a lot of corporal punishment because he refuses to follow the dictates of the communities leader and because he keeps trying to run away to get back to Tom. Tom would swoop in in a heartbeat to rescue Peter if he could do it with the law’s blessing—and if the presence of a young boy didn’t stir up painful memories for Hannah of the loss of her own child at Auschwitz.

My only criticism—and it’s really more of a quibble—is that it feels a little too fast. I wanted to wallow in this book and its wonderfully unique characters, but it was over almost before I knew it. Still, this is just a preference thing. I think other readers who like unusual love stories and give extra points for an uncommon setting will find a lot to love here.

The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted is great book group fare. There’s plenty to talk about as readers learn more about Hannah’s past and her heartbreaking memories. Tom’s struggles with rejection and love are also a fruitful avenue for discussion. It’s a lightning fast read, so group members are more likely to finish it on time. It’s in a fresh setting and Hillman skillfully recreates rural Australia in the 1960s and early 1970s, both the physical landscape and the social mores. At times, it felt like a lighter version of the classic Australian novel, A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute, which also tells the story of characters finding love at healing in the Australian Outback after harrowing experiences during World War II.

4.5/5⭐️

Wow, finished this one in a day...definitely not the norm for me! Set in rural Australia in the late 60s, this book is filled with flawed, deeply human and ultimately triumphant characters...a story told in two time periods/locations (Hannah is an Auschwitz survivor), it covers a range of emotions...despair, guilt, unimaginable loss, tenacious faith and finally the healing power of redemption and love. Very well-written, and even though at times I wanted to strangle a few characters, I felt the author was just being true to his characters’ personalities.

Thanks to #NetGalley & #GPPutnamsSons for the ARC. The opinions are strictly my own.

I received an ARC of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Tom Hope is a broken man when he meets Hannah, a woman who has been dealt devastating blows in her life. I love the ending.

Can broken people heal? Do they want to? This is the central question of Robert Hillman's tender novel, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted, which finds an unlikely couple falling in love and struggling with each other's loyalties. Told partly in flashback to the Holocaust, and partly in 1960s rural Australia, the story does not flinch at pain, nor does it indulge in sentimentality. Rather, through gentle prose and thoughtful reflection, it examines how the desire for love, grief over, loss and the will for survival are at odds with each other at every turn. Highly recommended.

In a small town in rural Australia in the late 1960s, a strange woman decides to open a book shop. She enlists the help of Tom, a young sheep farmer who has recently been abandoned by his wife. As the story progresses, flashbacks tell the story of how Hannah, a Jewish woman from Budapest, ended up in this spot so far away from her home.

Although the story starts a bit slowly, by about halfway I was totally hooked. The characters are intriguing and realistic and I was completely involved in their stories. I couldn't wait to see how things played out. Hannah's story is heartbreaking, but Tom's is too in a very different way. This is part romance, part historical fiction, part family drama, but all about how connecting with other humans can be fulfilling and redemptive. The out of the way setting may be a bit off-putting for some American readers - there is a fair amount of regional slang, but the story is certainly universal. Well worth the time.