Customer Reviews

Social Blunders

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I am a huge fan of Nick Hornby and Richard Russo, and Tim Sandlin belongs in their club. The characters are deftly drawn and speak with such unique voices. I'm now on a quest to read everything this man's ever written.

Huh? I can't believe that mostly everyone gave this book at least four stars. To be blunt, I thought it sucked.

Whereas I tore through the Sorrow Floats and Skipped Parts and loved them, I couldn't even finish Social Blunders. It doesn't embody the originality or freshness of the other books at all. The characters aren't even close to believable--they're completely one-dimensional. They don't at all resemble their former selves from the previous two books. They react to their given situations according to a predictable formula, which makes for some really boring reading.

As for the plot, I found it overly contrived to make up for the lack of character development. Of course, I don't really know much about the plot since I couldn't even get through the entire book.

Conclusion: read Sorrow Floats and Skipped Parts, and forget about this one. Don't spoil a good thing.

Tim Sandlin wraps up the GroVont trilogy in style with Social Blunders.

In some ways, this is the weakest book of the trilogy--picking up the story 10 more years into the future and returning to Sam Callahan as the narrator, book three is not as believable as the others. The characters all find themselves in rather unlikely places in life and some of the episodes border on slapstick. Beyond that, the secondary characters are not a well drawn in the earlier books.

Yet, Social Blunders overcomes these flaws for two main reasons. First, its king-hell hilarious--probably the funniest book of the series. Sam's voice has lost none of its distinct charm as he's moved into his thirties (although he simultaneously acts older and younger). Second, like the best parts of the first two books, its got a heart of gold. As the story moves into its final act, its nearly as touching as the first two books.

In the end, although fans could probably spend time with Sam, Maurey, Lydia and the gang as often as Sandlin might care to write about them, things end on a perfect note, leaving little hope or need for another chapter in a truly wonderful series.

I read the entire trilogy one after another without a break. I was greatly looking forward to this book because I had enjoyed the others so much. Unfortunately, while there are portions of this book that are touching, and others that are flat-out funny, the book suffers from two serious flaws.

First, Sam has too damn much money. This leads to many, many problems with the book. To begin with, it totally misses the opportunity that was foreshadowed in Skipped Parts, when Caspar, Sam's grandfather, kept importuning him, "think carbon paper." We all know that carbon paper was the buggy whip of the late 20th century, and one expected that eventually the Callahan fortune would dissipate and Sam (and Lydia and Shannon and for that matter Maurey) would be left to fend for themselves financially. Instead, Sam, despite having absolutely no head for business or investment, makes a whimsical decision to change the family business into a golf cart company and finds underpaid women executives to run it, and voila, he makes millions a year and doesn't have a clue how his own business is run. As a result, he can buy anything and anyone. Private detective on your tail? Pay him off. Cub Scouts distributing leaflets about you? Pay them off. Pete runs up thousands in hospital bills? Send a check. Yet, oddly, Sam doesn't just go out and replace his 380Z when his wife runs off, or even the muffler on her old beater. Huh?

Second, too many characters are introduced too quickly and their reactions overwhelm any appropriate motivation. With just a few words exchanged in the space of hours, two men are seeking to destroy his life, a young boy decides to attempt suicide around him, one woman throws himself at him and another seeks in him the great friend of her life. I'm skipping a few. In the midst of all this, the one character who barely says a word, Mimi, was actually the one person who knew Sam's mom as a friend. Nothing about this was developed, just like nothing about the fact that Sam is planning to spend the rest of his life with her daughter. "Lydia, you remember your friend Mimi? Well, the one good thing to come out of this is I'm in love with her daughter." The line never gets spoken.

All that being said, once all the junk with the five families is disposed of and the book heads to Wyoming, where Sandlin is far more comfortable describing the characters and society, the book settles down significantly. The scenes where Maurey and Sam finally conclude that it is time for them to "break up" are touching and beautiful. If I were editing a book that ended this well, I'd either have demanded that the North Carolina scenes be filled in significantly, or a lot of the characters cut completely. In the first two books of the trilogy, Sandlin made even a minor character like Rodney Canneloski or Hugo, Sr. come alive for us. I could have done without Wanda and the two pregnant girls and everyone but Gilia who lived around the golf course, and would have liked to learn more about Bill Gaines (did he pick the name from Mad's publisher?). And was there really as much of a need for a home for unwed mothers in the early 80's as he posits? By then, with legal abortion and a change in societal mores, I would have thought such places were going the way of carbon paper. But maybe that was Sandlin's point and I missed it.

Social Blunders was the first book I had read by Sandlin. This book made me want to read everything else by him. Sandlin is one of the funniest writers alive. His characters embody that small wacky part of us that we never actually live out. The man must keep writing. (if you send him a postcard, he will send you one back that's personally written)

Social Blunders doesn't tear along as captivatingly as Skipped Parts and Sorrow Floats. Still, it is difficult to find a novel that is this well written, generates this many laughs, and has as powerful a message as any of the three parts of the trilogy. So, maybe Social Blunders deserves only four and a half stars.

I picked up Social Blunders By chance. Hands down one of the best books I have read. I have pushed this book on all my friends and they loved it! Warning once you read one you will want to read all of his books.

This book captivated me from the first page. The characters were drawn very well, each with their own set of quirks, and each easy to like in their own way. I guess I can only say that I loved the writing, the characters, and the story very much and would recommend it to anyone.

As a newbie to Tim Sandlin's writing, I enjoyed "Social Blunders" as a stand-alone novel. His central characters -- Sam, Lydia, Shannon and Maurey -- are all flawed and vividly drawn. Sam, our 33 year-old recently divorced father of Shannon, 19, decides to seek out the identity of his father, one of five H.S. football who raped Lydia, Sam's mother. Teen pregnancy runs in the family. Shannon is the 19 year-old daughter of Sam and Maurey, conceived when her parents were still in middle-school. Sam says at one point when Shannon is trying to exert her independence, "Only yesterday, she'd held my hand when we crossed the street. She used to run all the way home from first grade because she missed me. Hell, I used to run all the way home from eighth grade because I missed her."

The novel opens with Sam's musing, "Traumatic events always happen exactly two years before I reach the maturity level to deal with them," I said, just to hear how the theory sounded out loud." Although he understands his flaws, particularly when it comes to choosing the wrong women, he can't help but tripping himself up again and again. Additionally, he leaves wreckage behind in his path. There are funny scenes where we witness the havoc he inflicts on the lives of his five possible dads and their families. Wanda, his recent ex-wife, is a frightening character. She's cold, vindictive, and greedy. She's not the kind of ex anyone would want to have.

Sam's obsessions with oral sex and his seeing himself as a means of satisfying women grew tiresome. The point was made early on.

Lydia's sums up her son perfectly: "Sam, all your life I've never been able to decide if you walk around with your head in the clouds or up your ass." I enjoyed seeing the character growth, the resolution of the novel, and felt like the ending was plausible and appropriate.

Marie Estorge
author of STORKBITES: A MEMOIR
and CONFESSIONS OF A BI-POLAR MARDI GRAS QUEEN
Storkbites: A Memoir

Skipped Parts, the first in this series, was an amazing find for me. When I found out it was actually a part of a series, I was very happy to continue reading through these characters. Sam Callahan practically wooed me, and I fell in love with my new favorite protagonist.
Sorrow Floats, the second in the the series, was as equally amazing to me as the first. I wasn't fond of Maurey at first, but my opinion changed quickly as Sandlin gave her so much depth and emotion - I couldn't help but fall head-first into the story.

But - Social Blunders (which I was excited about because I would be able to return to my first love, Sam), did not hit the high mark I anticipated.

Sam still had his quirks and his charm, but the story seemed so much more forced, to me. It's very difficult for me to pinpoint where I lost hope. To me, Sam was someone who was incredibly self-aware as a child. As an adult, he fell to about half capacity and gained some selfish reasoning along the way. I hate to compare it to this, but he became some kind of Larry David-esque character to me. And personally, it's not my taste.

I enjoyed the introduction of Shannon and the juxtaposition I read between her and her parents - especially concerning her love life. I was disappointed in Lydia at the end. It's like Sandlin wanted us to have a break in all her selfish glorifying - and I didn't. She became a different person, which had me questioning who she is completely. She had so many absolutes, it was odd to see so many broken in one scene.

Overall, it seemed like the plot was just contained with Sam's "antics." At some point to adulthood, he became a bored, rich guy who was reaching for some kind of writer stereotype.

The read was still enjoyable. The characters still great. It's the comparison and the expectations that leave me disappointed. Thus, 3 stars: a lot of great stuff, still a cool series, but obvious character changes that don't hold the same mold as the previous. I may move on to "Lydia" at a later point in time when I can handle her.