Blankets by Craig Thompson is an autobiographical look at growing up and finding oneself through trials of religion, family, and love. The illustrations set a powerful backdrop to what otherwise may have been a cliched story line of teenage exploration.

This is a fast-paced graphic novel that weighs in at over 500 pages, but is one demanding to be read quickly in one sitting. There are moments forcing you to slow down and absorb.

Blankets is far from perfect, as it seems much of the growth Thompson describes weighs far too heavily in a singular relationship that happened over a single 2-week period with a girl for whom he had incredible lust. A little far fetched, I think, for what the rest of the story brought in terms of religious and family impressions on who we are as humans.

That said, Blankets is a classic in the graphic novel world and for good reason: it’s a well-executed story with much literary merit to the writing. We have symbolism, we have foreshadowing, we have a classic bildungsroman set up and more, all in addition to fantastic graphic elements. The text-to-image balance was perfect.

Blankets is a fantastic readalong to David Small’s Stitches and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. There is tragedy and an ultimately hopeful conclusion in each title, along with a near fully-fleshed main character. I’d venture to say Blankets would be a good story to get new readers into graphic novels — but only if the size won’t intimidate. It’s a classic story arc, though sometimes the fluidity can be a bit challenging (i.e., how one scene moves into another). Give this to fans of, say, Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called It. It’s not as strong a connection as it is with Stitches, but we’re thinking more in terms of reader versus the storyline here — this is where you can potentially pull in a new reader, versus someone looking for a similar story. Just make sure your reader does not object to nudity, as there is a little; it is not gratuitous nor overpowering. The language will be similar as that found in all of these titles. The ideal age is the teenager and above, though certainly it is more appropriate for older teens content wise, and the appeal for the actual story will trend older. Blankets is a reflection and as such, the more one can do that, the more one will relate.

This is a title I will pick up again in a few years. My reading my be greatly impacted and changed, and it’s something I know I can come back to with an entirely different perspective. It certainly will be a perennial classic for that reason alone.