Product Description: At 592 pages, Blankets may well be the single largest graphic novel ever published without being serialized first. Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith. A profound and utterly beautiful work from Craig Thompson. The New Printing corrects 3 small typos, widening the spine graphics, but otherwise is identical to the first printing.
I really enjoyed this! I'd never read a graphic novel before so I was pleasantly surprised at how well the story was conveyed through pictures. Sometimes I thought there were too many words even. I could really identify with the "story" even though many critiqued that there was no story. It's a 580 page book--theres story! Whether you enjoyed the story is a whole different... story. Wow, this is not going at all as planned. Anyway. I think it's definitely worth the few hours it takes to read. I read it once straight through and then read it again just looking at the pictures. I would own this book and read it from time to time, gladly. Oh and as far as the banning it from the school libraries. I agree with that, sort of, but from public libraries--no! I wouldn't recommend this to teenagers, but I wouldn't ground them for reading it if they were my teenagers, or anything...
Boring I guess I'm one of the few who just "didn't get" this one. I found it to be really boring. I work at a library and would read this on my breaks, but it felt more like a chore and less like a pleasure to get to the end of this book. The drawings are nice and everything but I never liked the main character. I understand that its semi autobiographical, but maybe the author should have embellished the story a little more before committing it to paper. The basic story follows a boy growing up in an overly religious family/town as he enters his teen years an awkward scrawny, artistic outcast feeling out of touch with most people looking only to Jesus for guidance (and friendship?) the main character doesn't have any friends that I can remember other than Jesus. Anyway, he meets a girl at bible camp and after months of keeping up a pen-pal type relationship with her, convinces his parents to let him spend his winter break with her and her family. (The girls "chaotic" family was really the only interesting part of the book.) He spends 2 weeks with her, then goes home, just to dump her over the phone and burn (almost)everything she ever gave him, including the letters she wrote him during the pen-pal thing.
I'm sure a few people aren't going to like this review but thats basically what I got form the story. It was very boring to me. I wanted to like it, I just didn't.
Get your emo kleenex out. It's been a few years since I first read "Blankets", but I still remember it being an incredibly powerful and fun read. "Blankets" is the book that got me into graphic novels and finally got me reading fiction again. It's that good. Craig is the rejected kid in all of us. He beautifully depicts going to Bible Camp, anxious to finally make some friends because surely Christian kids will take him in. When they reject him, he goes further into himself stating "I can take kids at school making fun of me, but kids at Bible camp...that was a bit much." Amen to that. Craig Thompson does a superb job taking you back into the mind of a child and an adolescent. Read it at night, in your bedroom alone, with The Smiths playing, or The Pixies, Tori Amos or whatever you listened to in High School. Why not hang some Christmas lights for teenage mood lighting? Either way, prepare to be transported.
Beautiful story with appropriate illustrations I found this book a few years ago right as I was graduating high school. It resonated with me then and it still does today. I have my own copy now and every few months I take it out and read it again. Whether you've already had that first love that changes your life forever, as Craig did, or you're still waiting to experience that kind of love you will thoroughly enjoy this book. The story is just great and Craig's illustrations complement the text perfectly. I wasn't a fan of graphic novels until I read this book, now I have a new appreciation for them.
Delightfully painful An incredibly honest story about a kid and later a teenager facing his life through christian eyes. Once you've started to read it, it's like an invitation to come into a world where the most primary, clean and real sensations are felt, page after page. Is not usual that someone cries after reading a book, but probably you wont be able to hold your tears after finishing Blankets... A graphic novel to recomend, no doubt!
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