two: blankets

Thompson, Craig. Blankets. Marietta, Georgia: Top Shelf Productions, 2003. PDF file.

Annotation:

Craig thinks back to his childhood memories of times he spent with his brother. The struggles he went through during his teen years with bullying and experiencing love for the first time. As well as understanding his belief, Christianity.

Justification for Rejection:

Blankets starts out with Craig sharing a bed with his brother, Phil. Throughout the book, stories of times he had spent with his brother in that bed and the memories. He questions himself on why he wasn’t able to protect his brother. As they grow up, they start to grow apart.

Craig meets his first love, Raina, at Church Camp during the winter, which later leads to him spending two weeks with her in Michigan. Upon his arrival to Raina’s home, she gifts him with a quilted blanket with patches that reminded her of him. Craig learns about Raina’s family. Her parents were going through a divorce and how she feels responsible to care for her two adopted siblings and niece.

With Craig’s return back home, he felt that they were able to stay connect and handle a long distance relationship, but Raina starts to distance herself. In the end, she asks for a mutual break up and continues to stay friends. Upon his return home, Craig reconciles with Phil in order to build up their relationship again.

Craig’s parents are devoted Christians. He has a hard time in finding himself and finding peace with Christianity and God. He felt God had turned his back on him when he drew a picture of a naked woman, but was soon able to find peace with him again after spending time with Raina. His Pastor asked him to consider going into the ministry, his parents even suggests that he consider him to not go to art school but a church college.

Craig soon felt his faith crashing down on him when he started questioning the bible of contradictory. Not being able to accept what his pastor had told him that it should be “…recognized…as a growth process of the Bible (549).”  Moving out of his parent’s home, Craig only returned on certain occasions and sometimes for the holidays. He was unable to tell his parents he no longer was Christian.

Blanket was a great coming-of-age story that let us go on a journey experiencing Craig’s childhood memories, his first love, and faith in Christianity. Thompson did a good job referencing different childhood story as his flashback in order to see what fit into his currently young adult life.

The message that was being put out there didn’t seem to exactly make sense to me and confused me. The cover sparked my interest and the simple title, Blanket, had me wanting to know what the book was about. Reading it, I felt frustrated and had a hard time relating to the character of the story. Though it’s sort of an autobiography of the author, I just couldn’t grasp the feeling or idea of the story to keep me interested. I continued reading it hoping that I would be able to find something I could relate to, but even as I proceeded to reading it I grew less and less interested. I started skipping pages, but eventually was able to tie the story together. In a way, I was unable to relate myself to the character’s religious belief, since I feel like I’ve never struggled to find peace with my belief. I like the specs of his flashback of his childhood, as I at times like to look down memory lane and relate it to my young adult life.

I had high expectation for the book but it left me hanging by a thread. I feel that there is something missing, but I can’t seem to figure out what it is. Thompson ties together three different concepts together: childhood, first love, and Christianity. Though in a way it was well put together and it was a good read, I felt it jumped from one concept to another, and trying to somehow tie the concept together whether it was: childhood and Christianity, Christianity and love, love and childhood, or all three at once.

Genre: Graphic Novel | Coming-of-Age