DNF - 23%
I realise I am going to be wildly unpopular if I give this a low rating as I did not finish this book and it's well loved by critics. Therefore I am leaving my star rating blank in order to not skew the rating downwards.

The reason for giving up is simple for me:
I used to be a graphic designer, my husband still is, my brother works in special effects for movies and I've met dozens of comic book artists and other artists over the years. I can tell you one definitive thing from all that experience: <b>We are NOT all train wrecks. PERIOD.</b>
In fact most artists (of any kind) I know are really hard working people that bust their butts every day, for longer hours than the average 'office worker', and put their heart and soul into their artistry. Now are there some bad seeds out there, yes, in any industry (especially one as competitive as art) there always is someone who makes everyone else look bad. But as a general rule the art industry is not full of a bunch of washed up druggy losers there's too much work involved to just get noticed and they don't put the effort in.

<b>So why is this relevant? </b>
Because, as is so often the case, I feel like The Animators is setting up the art industry to be seen as awful. It's ironic that [b:The Devil Wears Prada|5139|The Devil Wears Prada (The Devil Wears Prada, #1)|Lauren Weisberger|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1388179604s/5139.jpg|38765] is one of the most honest books (and movies) out there. I have seen publishers be that awful, vague and mean; and I absolutely loved it so much because it was so true! However the same cannot be said for the Animators. I have met very few successful artists that are complete drugged out losses. And so I don't really understand what Kayla Rae Whitaker is trying to say with her portrayal of these two brilliant female artists (except to say that if art is hard for men it's doubly hard for women..?) as partying messes who have just made it big.

Additionally, this book felt hard to read for me. I needed to work a bit too hard to follow the thoughts of the characters. It's likely a wonderful literary study but honestly as I was reading it all I could think was how much I wish it was [b:A Visit from the Goon Squad|7331435|A Visit from the Goon Squad|Jennifer Egan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1356844046s/7331435.jpg|8975330] which I really enjoyed. Maybe it's the difference in my personal view between the music industry and the art industry that I can accept a harsh, drug-addled perspective from the music world but not the art world. Maybe that makes me the one in the wrong... All I know is I just don't see the correlation that is being made here in this industry.

At the end of the day it was just too much effort without any pay-off at the 23% mark. I didn't like either of our two main gals and was frustrated with both of them for being really annoying and just flat out dumb. Whether it was their relationships with one another, others, interviews on NPR, or their general laziness and overall stoned attitudes I just wasn't buying it; and therefore didn't feel
any compassion towards them for it.

The Animators — the life story of two partners, best friends and closest family reveals to you the good, bad and the ugly without holding back. It’s well-written, sharp and lemony bitter, the prose is freed from anything boring. 

Friendship as a family and work as your whole being and purpose are the major themes that the novel unfolds. Lessons come later in the hardest way. If a life is the ultimate test of a friendship, then those women had done it all. Going through years of coffee and work-infused nights, the ins and outs of parties and drugs, the ups and downs of the creativity flow and pushing each other to become their very best artistically. 

Sharon and Mel met at Ballister and instantly clicked. Together they drew, created, loved and fought. Neither of them having an easy life and careless childhood, they were each other’s only family. They understood. Their friendship filled the painful void, eased the edges. It sustained them, but it didn’t heal them.

The Animators is heavily layered, there’s so much to it that a couple-of-chapters-read can only scrape the surface. By the middle, you’re deep into the narrative, into Mel and Sharon’s world and immersive minds. As they take on the road to youth and art, they begin to fall and peel off the plasters covering the scary wounds of their past. Their will and courage to move on is admirable. They keep on going.

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut is rich in emotional depth, plot and of course, some good animation talk.

I have kindly received a copy of this book from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group in exchange of a fair review.

I really liked this book but I understand why it might not resonate with some. Mel and Sharon are fascinating- this is not only about their friendship but also about how we deal with our pasts and move forward into a world unlike that we grew up with. Boy do these two have pasts. I venture there has not been another novel about young women in animation so I appreciated that; I actually would have liked more technical details. There is a lot of drama here (maybe a bit too much). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This would have benefited from an unglamourous edit to rethink some of the plot twists and to tighten it up a bit. On balance, it's a good debut.

This is a brilliant work of woman’s fiction. It is about two young women, Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught. They meet in college and form a bond that takes them through the years. As the title implies, they join forces upon graduation from college as animators and hit the big time when a fully animated film that they produced goes national and they become world famous. This examines their lives, their trials and the bond that holds them thru debilitating illness and addictions.

The author tells this story in the first person by Sharon. This allows you to experience her life from a young child born in the hills of Kentucky through all the craziness that becomes her existence with her partner. You want to laugh and cry at her frustration with self-destructive behavior and her inability to do anything about it. You also feel the love that is shared between these two women as they struggle with their artist abilities and to be accepted.

I enjoyed this book. The plot was intriguing and had some surprises that were very unexpected. It kept me turning pages until the end. I recommend this for late teen to adult readers. It contains mild profanity and although it is not graphic, it does deal with adult situations that may not be suitable for a younger audience.

I requested and received this book for review from NetGalley.

Sorry, clicked by mistake to 'read now'. Not a title I meant to download.

Kayla Rae Whitaker's remarkable first novel The Animators (Random House, digital galley), charts the highs and lows of the friendship between two women with opposite personalities and a shared creative passion.

shoutout on A Clear DayI Can Read Forever and Goodreads

While The Animators was a bit slow to start, it built to an intriguing investigation of personal relationships as they are shaped, challenged, and morphed over the years. I've already recommended it to fans of Donna Tartt and even Kavalier and Clay. I look forward to her next work.

When this book started, I thought it was going to be a typical gay/straight girl-buddy narrative -- shy, withdrawn girl meets another with a larger-than-life personality, and that relationship becomes defining for both, in the best and worst ways. And it was that, but it was more than that too. About a quarter of the way into the novel, I found the characters more relatable and the story takes an unexpected turn into darker themes than the cover and book jacket synopsis might suggest. Kayla Rae Whitaker handles these themes with a sense of wit and levity that doesn’t weigh the story down, and skillfully evades cliché in her narrative.

The Animators is a fascinating look inside a dynamic creative partnership--the author does an admirable job creating a deeply textured, multi-layered relationship between Mel and Sharon, and the descriptions of animation technique are visually vivid and evocative. The peripheral characters--friends and family members--really come to life as well. This debut author has written a compelling contemporary story about managing creativity, understanding family, finding a place and striving for understanding.

It's very rare that I start a book and somewhat lose interest, start reading something else, and then drag myself back to finish and actually enjoy it by the end, but The Animators managed to achieve this.

It's a realistic and touching portrayal of the friendship between two damaged female animators, Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught, and the personal and professional changes they go through over the span of 10 or so years. I expected it to stay focused mostly in New York and follow the trajectory of their career, and it kind of does that, but there are several sharp (and quite dark) narrative turns - my favourite being the time spent in Sharon's hometown in rural Kentucky.

Its main strength is the depth of Sharon and Mel's relationship, but it also has very interesting things to say about the richness but also potential destruction that can result from using your life and history as inspiration for art. The writing is clean and packed with poignancy, and although the plot feels slightly scattered at times - you can tell Whitaker had so many ideas and was trying to fit in as many as possible - it's so full of heart that by the end I couldn't help but love it.

Sharon and Mel met during their first year in college when they were both studying visual arts. Ten years later, they are still best friends and have just won the Hollingsworth Prize for their movie Nashville Combat based on Mel's childhood growing up with an addicted mother and her long list of boyfriends. And when fame divides them, tragedy brings them back together. As Mel helps Sharon recover from a stroke that almost killed her, they decide that their next project will revolve around Sharon's life. But as they dig into the past, recriminations and family secrets come to light.
The more I read this book the more I liked it. Sharon and Mel’s friendship is stronger than everything else and I loved how both would do anything for the other. An absorbing and well-written novel, emotional (I almost cried at some point), but also funny. I couldn’t put it down.

An amazing, lovely, intense, insightful, funny, sweet and sad story. INSPIRATIONAL!!

An interesting and involving story of relationships, partnerships and love. Okay, but not something I would recommend to most people I know.

I seem to be the only person who didn't just adore this book. And I'll be the first to say the story is fresh, the prose clever and often elegant, Whitaker's understanding of the agony that is making art acute and insightful. Here's the problem: Sharon's boring. She's needy, selfish, and insecure. She's believable but unbearable and not interesting enough to win you over as an antihero. It's a shame, because she's surrounded by more captivating characters. I tried to persuade myself to care what happened to her but just couldn't do it. A decent book but it deserved a better protagonist.

The Animators by Kayla Raw Whitaker is the story of Sharon and Mel, best friends and animators. They met years ago in a preppy east-coast college, both from small backwater towns in the South and feeling a bit out of place. Their dysfunctional families inspired their art, for which they are now becoming quite renowned. Cracks are starting to form in their friendship, however…and then Sharon experiences an earth-shattering health scare that will turn everything on its head. This book isn’t for everyone – lots of drugs, alcohol and swearing – but its characters are likeable in spite of their flaws. All in all, this was an original, character-driven read.

Published in the Napanee Guide ("What's New in Fiction?") March 2, 2017

You know, the voiceover continues, it would be nice if we were defined, ultimately, by the people and places we loved. Good things. But at the end of the day, there’s the reality that we’re not. Does the good stuff really have the weight that the weird stuff does? What makes the deeper imprint— all the ridges and gathers— on who we are? Do we have a choice?
The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker chronicles the relationship between two creative persons as they struggle, both together and apart, to work through and rise above their pasts and how their art proves instruamental in that journey. We meet Sharon at the beginning of her time at prestegious art school which is a drastic and welcomed change from her Kentucky home.

I had chosen art because I needed something to make use of the bright lights that had existed in my head for as long as I could remember, my fervent, neon wish to be someone else.
Sharon meets Mel's art before she meets her in person and in that work she sees a reflection of her own passion and a shared ambition. Sharon recognizes the deep need for expression and the outlet that art can provide.

When I looked at Mel’s stuff, I felt something different. I didn’t know how to quantify what I was seeing in words, but I could feel it. She was naturally, easily good, and when I saw things she had done, I felt a curiously pleasurable pressure at my middle, something tinged with pain at the edges. It was an expansive, generous feeling. Before I saw her, even, I saw what she did.
Recognizing an equal level of talent, Mel approches Sharon at the end of class and they spend the remainder of that evening relishing in their shared weirdness and forming the bond that launches their success and withstands all the unknown challanges they face as a result, together.

We sank into a cozy little vacuum, Mel and I, watching. I don’t know if it was the cartoons themselves, or watching them with Mel, but that night was the closest I had felt to knowing what I wanted from my life. She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.
Fast-forward ten years and Sharon and Mel are a sucessful animation partnership and the recipients of a prestegious grant for their work on Nashville Combat a raw, in-depth examination of Mel's adolesence in Florida with her mother and her string of boyfriends. Forced to face the reality of her past bared for all to see, Mel increases her efforts to dull the everpresent ache the birth of this creative work left- the constant reguritation of pain.

It’s all happened so fast, the transition of Mel’s hell-raising from preoccupation to main attraction, that I keep asking myself if I’m not blowing it all out of proportion. If I’m really seeing what I think I’m seeing. But you don’t work with someone for over ten years without getting some overflow, knowing a little of what they know, feeling a little of what they feel, and I can feel the dark rushing at Mel’s center, the guilt that’s gnawing her raw. It rips me in half to see something she loves hurt her so badly. I wonder if this is why we can’t come up with a good idea. If she’s scared to work. And, if she is, what I can possibly do about it.
An unexpected tragedy involving Sharon pulls Mel from her downward spiral, the problems of the present bigger and more threatening. She throws all of her energy into caring for her, as Sharon struggles to regain her life, before.

I used to have such confidence in my mind. I had faith in the life I had created for myself— the serviceable, productive outer persona, and my inner life, the one I could only inhabit in my head. I prided myself on my ability to control the two. Now both have collapsed. I would give anything to be able to speak. To write, to draw. My old self grows faint, moving in and out of darkness.
At Sharon's bedside night and day, Mel discovers something about Sharon's past that cracks her wide open. A secret so personal, Sharon struggles to share even with Mel whom she shares every other aspect of her life with. When the story is finally told, the pair do what they do best and they draw, putting into cartoon the trauma of Sharon's life.

I want to be able to feel this way all the time. To be able to laugh about the things that have happened to me, baggage and all, light and dark. To own it handily enough so that it could be funny and horrifying at once. Maybe this is the idea I’ve been looking for. Maybe this is something close.
Encompassing the entirerity of Sharon's and Mel's partnership we see the depth of their stuggle and successes. Whitaker masterfully blends humor, vice and the darkness of th human experience. A surprisingly endearing story is told that is all at once audacious, abrasive and agonizing. The Animators will sink its teeth into you but by then you will be too far gone to notice and when its over the ache will remain long after you've read the final page.

I know what Mel and I did with memory. We ran our endurance dry with our life stories, trying to reproduce them, translate them, make them manageable enough to coexist with. We made them smaller, disfiguring them with our surgeries. We were young. We did not know what we were doing.

I have a confession: I have had this ARC (thanks to NetGalley) on my TBR shelf since the end of August. I thought the story sounded very intriguing. I enjoy reading books that deal with the deep and often complex friendships (between women in particular), investigating how they can change throughout lives as they grow and mature. But for whatever reason, it has sat there unread. Until now.

The Animators tells the story of Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught, friends and animating partners for the last ten years. They have always been a good team, but after the release of their first film – Nashville Combat, a personal narrative of Mel’s childhood – Sharon starts to worry that Mel is the real talent in their partnership…and she is just tagging along for the ride. When tragedy strikes, they have to reevaluate everything: their friendship, their partnership, their career, and their own individual lives.

I must say, this story was packed with way more action than I could have anticipated. There is a lot more packed into this book than might initially seem. The synopsis is necessarily vague, and because of this, I had little to no idea what I was getting myself into. It was quite the journey. As we follow Sharon’s and Mel’s lives throughout the course of this book, it feels like one curveball after another. I really didn’t know what I was going to meet with each turn of the page.

I’m still not able to fully wrap my head around everything that happened in this book because it was quite a lot. It’s often heavy and emotionally packed, but it’s also hilarious. The characters are complex and interesting, and even though they have their flaws, you can’t help but feel for them.

In terms of aesthetics, the cover itself is also colorful and definitely eye-catching. Alex McKenna, the narrator of the audiobook, did a fantastic job with giving a life and a unique voice (both figuratively and literally) to each of the characters.

If you have the chance, you definitely should not miss this debut by Kayla Rae Whitaker.

I received this book from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for an honest review!

Nothing in the description of this novel really spoke to me … a story about animators? Not really in my wheelhouse. However, several of my friends recommended it so I went with it and I’m so glad that I did! This is a wonderful novel about friendship, art and overcoming the obstacles of life. Yes, it’s about animation and art but it’s so much more! It’s not a fun or particularly nice story – there is quite a bit of darkness in the narrative. Each of the main characters, through their art and friendship, find a path out of their own histories and into a new life. The characters are extremely well written – multi-faceted and `complex in all the best ways. They aren’t always likable but they are always believable. The story is also complex but in a very readable way. The author doesn’t take the easy way out with the story or the characters. It’s dark with quite a bit of content around addiction and health issues. I was very taken with the story and how these characters used their art to find themselves and heal what’s broken. This is in some ways a love story, a story about friendship and how it can change your life. There is a lot of redemption and passion in this novel. And it’s such a great read! I highly recommend it! It truly packs a punch!

There’s a lot to enjoy in this debut novel about two young women who becomes not just friends but also artistic partners. There are plenty of novels about friendship but few where work and creativity are such an integral part of the relationship. Both women have long been obsessed by comics and animation and finally break into the big time when they make a full-length largely autobiographical animated film. Inevitably and predictably success brings along concomitant problems, and deep-seated traumas and disturbing memories from the past threaten them on both a personal and professional level. It’s an original novel, with good characterisation and authentic dialogue, but I did get tired of the sex, drugs and rock and roll lifestyle the women lead and found I could not relate to them at all. There are too many tropes here - misfit country girls coming to the big city, lots of “white trash” angst, diametrically opposed characters who nevertheless forge a long-lasting bond and so on, and there are also too many descriptions of individual cartoons for my liking. So I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much, although I recognise the author's skill and look forward to reading more from her in the future.

A fine, ambitious debut that successfully melds work, creativity, female friendship and family. A talent to watch.