Blankets

I originally received this as a gift from Danielle for Christmas 2011. It's a love story, after all. I think she thought it was a romantic gesture, though I'm not sure it is quite like she imagined. Anyway, I've been putting this one off for a long time mostly due to its size. It's 577 pages! Because I never opened it up, I was unaware of how few words there really were on each page. This graphic novel focuses heavily on the graphic part. I was shocked when I was able to finish it in about 2 hours. Surprisingly, it was a pretty great two hours!

The main character/narrator is Craig (I'm pretty sure there are a lot of autobiographical elements in here). We follow him (mostly chronologically) as he recounts his relationships with his brother, parents and eventually Raina, his love interest. All these relationships are portrayed in a very realistic, earnest way (probably because there are elements of truth in all of them). To Danielle's dismay, I probably am more drawn to the brother-brother relationship. It really hit home seeing Craig grow up and grow apart from his brother, only to recapture the relationship after some soul searching. Still, the meat of this book is Craig's high school romance with Raina. It doesn't disappoint. I was rooting for them the whole way. I was genuinely touched! This is any easy recommend to anyone. It was really, really good. Oh yeah and the drawings are pretty awesome to boot.