Blankets

Blankets by Craig Thomson is one of those titles where it could illicit a variety of emotions from the viewer, or at least it got one from me, and depicts the harsh reality the protagonist live in and who was only spared a few comforts in his life.
There were certain parts of the story where the themes hit me to such a degree that it was uncomfortable to move forward in the reading, but a good majority of it left me with little to relate to. How Thomson depicted the themes and conflicts of bullying, neglect, loneliness, molestation, religion, artistic pursuit, and identity is so raw and unapologetic showing the crass ugliness of it all. And I feel like the art perfectly encapsulate that, with the heavy brushstrokes, the wild imagery, and the brilliant visual metaphors, and the excellent compositions in a lot of the panels. While the facial features are mostly dot eyes the body language conveyed the expression the characters are feeling.
It's very interesting how Craig grew up during the course of the book and how his views of people and his beliefs evolved. In the beginning he was a devout christian who's goal was to be good and go to heaven and live in eternal paradise, but as he grew older he was becoming disillusioned with the foundation of christianity and began to despise aspects of it such as the group hive mind and close mindedness, and by the end of it he basically divorced himself from the religion entirely but still retained the core ideas. He also develops an interest in the arts and science in ways that a much younger Craig would scoff at. Such as in an earlier panel Craig was telling his mother how outrageous it was that the school was teaching the theory of evolution with his mother agreeing, but later on he was discussing carbon dating with his brother's wife and was asking her questions about geology. It's interesting seeing how Craig progresses, and how the changes are small but frequent, unlike some other fictions where the character change happens in big revelations and plot twists. While it is dramatic, it's not really realistic or relatable.
However unfortunately I found myself bored through a good portion of it. Another major theme of the book is first love, a subject I'm mostly uninterested in. It was hard to keep my attention on the book when I wanted to know more about Raina's family and their issues more than her relationship with Craig. But I fully admit that it is a personal thing and not everyone is going to agree. There are people who very much enjoys the romantic portion of it and can relate heavily on the slow burn of a relationship fizzling out, but I'm not one of those people and that seriously effected my enjoyment of the book.