[][][![image][]][]

A review of[Craig Thompson's Blankets][] is hard to write. Parts of it had me laughing and other parts almost made me cry. At the end I was very sad as I watched the main character made a bad decision yet I could see why he made it.

As you can see from the cover, it's an illustrated novel. The technical word is generally "graphic novel" but in this case the pictures are all in black and white. But that doesn't mean they aren't well-drawn. The art is beautiful and Thomspon uses them to convey what the Craig, the main character, is feeling and thinking. Yes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Maybe more than that in this book. Another thing that makes this book different than other graphic novels is that there are no super heroes here -- just a young man trying to figure his place in the world.

The story surrounds Craig, first in his elementary school years and we shift focus to his adolescence. He gets ostracized by this classmates, mistreated by his parents, and abused by his babysitter. But his main problem to overcome is not those -- it's that he can't protect his younger brother Phil from the same things. He soon meets a girl, Raina, who becomes his first love. From that point, it's a love story, but not a simple one -- Raina has a bad family situation herself, and Craig finds out that she is the caretaker of most of the family.

The real story isnt' about Craig's first love, but his own faith journey. His parents are Christians but are very judgemental. So are the people he goes to church with. The two-faced Christians at the winter camp where he met Raina almost made me throw the book across the room. In the end, Craig decides that he likes the things Jesus taught, but not necessarily the people that supposably follow Jesus. In the end, that's what makes him decide that he's not a Christian after all. A bad decision for probably the right reasons.

If you are into "experimental" reading, I would highly recommend this Blankets. The pictures are well-down, but are sometimes graphic. No, this is not for children -- it is surely adult material.