Carmen's Reviews > Blankets

This book is an autobiographical account of Craig's coming to terms with his faith and reconciling it with his sexuality.

Being raised in a born-again family - which is well-portrayed in this book - is not a foreign concept to me. I've spoken before about how damaging the church's messages about sexuality are. We always think of women being oppressed, repressed, damaged, and unhappy as a result of this message, but as I wrote in my review of TAKE MY HAND, men and boys are very hurt and damaged as well.

As someone who loves Jesus and reads his Bible daily, Craig has developed a fear of sexuality, finely tuned by his parents, his teachers, and his church. For many, many years he is the perfect Christian boy - one who never ever masturbates because it's a sin and feels extreme guilt and shame for drawing one single picture of a naked woman. He really and truly feels like he is "making Jesus sad" when he thinks lustful thoughts.

Then he meets a girl. At Christian Camp. Her name is Raina. She is beautiful and obviously really likes Craig.

Can Craig kiss Raina? Can he sleep in the same bed next to her? Can he bring himself to make love to her? Or has his religion screwed his sexuality up so badly that he's beyond repair?
...

I really liked this book. The illustrations are pretty, which counts for a lot. The story is very relatable for anyone who has been or has dated a born-again Christian. I thought Craig and Raina's story was touching and (not surprisingly) realistic. I was rooting for Craig to make peace with his sexual feelings towards Raina during the whole book, and really cheering them on as a couple. It could have easily gone either way.

There were a lot of parts of the book that made me sad, or made me think. Craig goes through frantic periods where he literally burns everything he owns that he thinks is 'sinful' or a 'temptation.' Many born-again Christians do these purges. The results are almost never permanent. I was upset because some of the stuff he burns is very personal and valuable stuff that I knew he would regret burning later.

Another issue that touched me was Raina's two siblings - a brother and a sister - who both have Down Syndrome. She takes care of them daily (they are 25 and 19 and live with her and their parents) and it is a lot of responsibility for her. She even skips school a lot of times to care for them and to care for her (married) older sister's infant daughter. It's obvious that the burden of family care and 'keeping the family together' has fallen on her 17-year-old shoulders. She struggles between wanting to be there for her family and support her family - and wanting to have her own life and time to do her own things.

I thought the book was very thoughtful and handled a lot of things tastefully and beautifully when it would have been very easy to make the book hateful or angry or vengeful.

It's almost 600 pages but it goes very fast.