This book is incredible.

Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught are so completely bad***. They're best friends and work partners who create off-the-wall cartoons that are hard-hitting and innovative, much like this book. The duo are so well-drawn by Whitaker (pun intended) that I was immediately sucked into their world. That meant that the twists in the story - and there are twists - while completely natural, also completely surprised and gut-punched me. I was totally invested in their lives and what happened in the book. Fantastic book. It's about millenials without FEELING too stereotypical "millenial", but it's more about how you deal with the everyday losses and daily heartbreaks that life throws your way.

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review - and let me tell you, it's possibly the best book I've ever read from them.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this novel. Full disclosure: I did not finish the book. After reading about half, I abandoned it to start something else. Just could not get into the characters.

Do NOT let the summary of this book fool you: Anyone could love this story; You don't have to be a cartoon fan. That is just a small piece of this heartbreaking story of love and loss. There are actually quite a few similarities with A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, but not as heavy and depressing. Though The Animators could certainly make you shed some tears! I am glad this is a Best Book of the Year finalist on Goodreads... definitely deserved.

Thank you Netgalley for my copy of this unexpectedly beautiful book!

This is a brilliant book with rich, flawed characters dealing with demons from their past in many different ways. Mel and Sharon bond in college -- both women are from rural, poor families that don't understand them, and are very out of place in their upstate New York college.
Fast forward several years, and they are partners -- a great balance of impulsiveness and discipline -- and winning a grant based on their cartoon based on Mel's childhood and at the center of an eclectic, bohemian NYC art scene. They complement each other like one person and are as close as can be, except for romantically -- both run through partners...Mel with women, Sharon with men.
Each has to take turns being the strong one and supporting the other and confronting their past -- Mel in Florida and Sharon in Kentucky.
The Animators follows the ups and downs of Sharon and Mel as they deal with art imitating life, the complications of real people represented in art and real vs. fictionalized people. They sabotage themselves, recover some equilibrium...until the next time.
They and many of the people around them are flesh and blood characters and their journey and redemption is entertaining and enlightening.

This is easily going to be among my top five for all of 2017. So surprising and authentic, with a great voice.

This is one of those books I know I'm supposed to like, but I just didn't. I got about halfway through it, felt like I needed a Prozac prescription, and quit.

Because it is a DNF, I did not leave a review on any platform.

First of all, the fact that this is a debut novel surprises me! I wouldn’t have ever guessed. Really, this is 3 1/2 stars. I read this while on my lunch breaks at work for a couple weeks and I think reading it in small chunks was a good idea. There’s a lot that happens and within the chapters there are smaller sections that are easy breaking points.

The writing and style is unique. Sometimes it was a little weird for me (and I even contemplated abandoning it at a couple points), but it fits perfectly with the personalities of Mel and Sharon. I loved the exploration of their personal friendship and how it evolves along with their professional partnership. This would be a great book to discuss with a group! I laughed out loud at several parts of this and cried at others. That’s when you know you’ve got something special in your hands.

The characters were complex and well-developed, and almost like you were meeting new friends that you're trying to get to know throughout the whole book. They weren't easy to figure out from the get-go. Perhaps if I had more knowledge of the computer animation industry it would have received a higher rating, but as it is it was just a fun read with great character development.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I fell in love with this wildly original novel that explores a work partnership between two women animators that are trying to be successful in a male-dominated industry. The two best friends, Mel & Sharon, bond in college and then decide to work together on an adult animated movie.

The yin and yang in this partnership is what makes it work so well. Sharon is steady and reliable while Mel brings a chaotic wildness to her work. When Sharon becomes ill though, they find their roles must be reversed and work has to be on pause until Sharon can return. It is through Sharon’s private journal that their next animated film takes shape and brings them back to Sharon’s hometown for answers.

Will everyone love this? Probably not! It’s crass and dark and, perhaps, the story goes on just a tad too long. However, all readers should have an appreciation for such an ambitious debut as Whitaker not only writes the book, but the animated movie plots that unfold for these animators. It is unlike anything I’ve read and I love the exploration of a female partnership carving their place in this artistic field.

A gritty story of love, escape and survival as best friends and animators tell their stories .

It is hard to believe that this is a debut novel. The writing is skilled, the dialogue is real and the characters, Sharon and Mel, are complex. I knew them right away or thought I did but not really because both Sharon and Mel change throughout their 30 years of friendship and partnership in unexpected and startling ways. This rollercoaster of being friends and partners show Sharon and Mel with all of their warts, complications, love, competition, fragilities and strength and twists and turns. Sharon believes that Mel is the creative catalyst in their animated movie-making business. Mel knows that without Sharon it would be pretty hard to manage the day-to-day and drink and drug and sleep with women. However, Mel also knows that Sharon has a story to tell and once Sharon is in crisis she pushed her, cajoled her to dig deeper and deeper to get to the core of her history.

In the beginning I didn’t connect to Mel. She seemed like a stereotypical character, brash and hard and a daredevil who took risks while others cleaned up the pieces. I know lots of people like them and I thought I knew who she was. And maybe that is all she thought she was. But, when Sharon needs Mel she shows up big-time. I didn’t expect that she could. But simply put, she loved Sharon. I didn’t expect that Sharon could become bolder and take to take a journey that was so traumatic and necessary, and, that, of course, it was with Mel.

One of the themes of this book is who owns the creative process. It is one of the best books I have read about the conundrums and pitfalls about making art and making history when it is a shared history with others. Sharon insists on the validity of her own truth though it comes at someone else’s expense; a person she passionately loves. How this plays out in the story shows how vital this questions is. And maybe unanswerable or maybe lots of people think they know the answer even though it can be as painful as it gets.
Honestly I could go on and on about this book. I loved it. I couldn't put it down. I felt like they were right by me and that we were in one of the most important conversations that we could have.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to review this book for an honest review.

What an amazing read! Mel and Sharon were so real and raw. I couldn't put it down. I just wish it hadn't taken me so long to start reading it.

Not what I was expecting. I thought this would be a sometimes-funny, sometimes-serious exploration of two women making it in a traditionally men's sphere, having to deal with sexism and maybe work a little harder to get their ideas heard.

Not really. Sharon and Mel meet in art school and begin working together almost immediately, and this is a dark and serious exploration of two women with troubled pasts and a complicated relationship. They work on their art almost in isolation from everyone except each other, and what they make is upsetting and divisive. There are themes of suicide, child abuse, sexual abuse, drug abuse, queerness, class warfare, and many more. All in all, it was much darker than the books I'm typically drawn to, but the language was like illuminated calligraphy--it shone with impressive care and talent. So be careful if you have abuse-related triggers, but I still highly recommend it.

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

Sharon Kisses and Meg Vaught meet in their college art course. They are both extremely talented cartoonists. After they finish college, they go on to create a cartoon about Meg’s life, called “Nashville Combat.” It largely focuses on Meg’s wild, alcoholic mother, who is now in prison. Their film is very successful and Meg spins out of control, drinking and doing drugs. She gets news that her mother was stabbed in prison and died of her injury. Meg and Sharon drive down to Florida to identify Meg’s mother’s body and to promote their film. Then everything spirals out of control, with Sharon ending up in the hospital and Meg sobering up. The two girls overcome some major challenges, but as soon as they reach the top again, they free fall back to the bottom. Meg and Sharon work well together, but are they also their own worst enemies?

This book was quite an emotional rollercoaster ride. I had to stop reading about a third of the way through and put it aside for a while. It was quite intense.

In the films that Meg and Sharon make, they address the hardships they have faced in their lives. Likewise, this book makes the reader look at her/his life in the same way. The story forces you to think about difficult subjects, such as rape, death, drug abuse, and heartbreak. The story pulls you in, so that you can’t avoid these problems, just like Meg and Sharon couldn’t escape these aspects of their lives.

I appreciated how this book addressed these important, inescapable topics. However, I felt overwhelmed by the wave of emotions that this book made me feel. This book was a little too intense for me.

An absolute surprise in discovering the art of animation given a nagging avoidance of all things cartoonish. Perhaps that surprise occurs in a metaphorical understanding of how close the process mimics life. The sketching mistakes and correction in timing on onion skin paper...Kisses discovers that life isn't as transparent as we are often led to believe. Fleshed out characters and fully formed plot with nuances and twists galore. Tough lessons, detailed retracing of steps, and the pursuit of perfection often yields the "good enough" in work and life where one's heart is invested.

Wonderful debut! Thanks to Net Galley for a advance ebook in exchange for a fair and impartial review!

I'd rate this a 3.5. With all the wonderful reviews of this debut novel, I expected more. It is a good story on friendship, with its complexity, and ups and downs of life generally. However, this was not an easy read and I had trouble wanting to pick it up and continue. Ms Whitaker is an upcoming talent, with good writing and excellent character development.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this book, as I did not ask for it but was suggested it by NetGalley. The Animators surprised me and I actually really enjoyed reading it.

The writing is really vivid and I fell in love with the prose first, Whitaker has magic when it comes to putting together words. And from this fact alone I will be watching with anticipation for her next book.
But back to The Animators. Wow, this book is an emotional roller coaster. I love that both the main characters were artists, and that they worked on cartoon movies (adult cartoon movies).

Sharon and Mel are adorable. Both wildly different and yet they work together so well. They took care of each other, put up with one another, and made a brilliant team. The Animators is a beautiful story of friendship and love and loss and life. It was easily a 4.5 read for me and I recommend it to you all.