Blankets

I finished re-reading one of my favorite books of all time. "Blankets" by Craig Thomson. I don't want to give too much away so here's a summary. Craig, his little brother Phil, mother and father live in a small farm town in Wisconsin. They are poor but get by, Craig is very religious just like his father and deeply believes in God. At school he is bullied by the other boy because of his social class and the way he looks. He feels like a failure to God because he doesn't look after his brother even when he gets into a dangerous situation, he doesn't do well in school, he's not strong or athletic or social. His only gift is he is a natural born artist. When Craig is 17he goes to a Church winter camp for a week during his three week winter break, this is where he meets the love of his life Raina. For two weeks and gets a window into Raina's stressful life. When he has to go he never see's Raina again.

This book has some really interesting themes one of them is religion. During the book Craig goes through a religious war with in. hen he is young his parents drill religion in his head, they make him believe that god is the lord of the universe, that there is only one god, that Jesus s the son of god and died for our sin. He takes this very seriously, he even burns all his drawings claiming that they took away from his Bible studies. But when he meets Raina they talk about God, Raina doesn't believe in Heaven or Hell, she doesn't believe in Adam and Eve, and once Craig leaves his house and goes to new york city he realizes he doesn't believe at all, he realizes the bible doesn't make since and that people like his mother depended to much on made up stories, don't get me wrong Jesus was real, Joseph was real and some other biblical prophets were real people but lost there real meaning in exaggeration, to the point where the myth and truth merged into the same thing.