Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Animators cover art

The Animators

By: Kayla Rae Whitaker
Narrated by: Alex McKenna
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.00

Buy Now for £13.00

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The One I Left Behind cover art
The Blackbird Season cover art
Hyperbole: A Novel cover art
How I Paid for College cover art
Roam cover art
The Man I Love cover art
Surviving Cyril cover art
Certain Dark Things cover art
The Opposite of Everyone cover art
His Pretend Baby cover art
32 Candles cover art
Purple Hearts cover art
Tucker's Way cover art
My Brilliant Friend cover art
South of Broad cover art
Wuthering Heights cover art

Summary

“A wildly original novel that pulses with heart and truth.... That this powerful exploration of friendship, desire, ambition, and secrets manages to be ebullient, gripping, heartbreaking, and deeply deeply funny is a testament to Kayla Rae Whitaker’s formidable gifts. I was so sorry to reach the final page. Sharon and Mel will stay with me for a very long time.” (Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest)

Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Kirkus Reviews, and BookPage.

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. 

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo, the friction of their differences driving them: Sharon, quietly ambitious but self-doubting; Mel, brash and unapologetic, always the life of the party. Best friends and artistic partners since the first week of college, where they bonded over their working-class roots and obvious talent, they spent their 20s ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Working, drinking, laughing. Drawing: Mel, to understand her tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether. 

Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature, which transforms Mel's difficult childhood into a provocative and visually daring work of art. The toast of the indie film scene, they stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success come doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. Sharon begins to feel expendable, suspecting that the ever-more raucous Mel is the real artist. During a trip to Sharon's home state of Kentucky, the only other partner she has ever truly known - her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy - reenters her life, and long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming. 

A funny, heartbreaking novel of friendship, art, and trauma, The Animators is about the secrets we keep and the burdens we shed on the road to adulthood. 

“Suffused with humor, tragedy and deep insights about art and friendship.” (People)

“[A] stunning debut.” (Variety)

“A compulsively readable portrait of women as incandescent artists and intimate collaborators.” (Elle)

©2017 Kayla Rae Whitaker (P)2017 Random House Audio
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: LGBTQ+

Critic reviews

"A mix of Beaches, Girls, and Thelma & Louise...a 'complicated', 'sensual, sexy', raw nerve of a 'roller coaster' through a 'tumultuous' friendship...If you let this story happen to you, you're gonna love it." (Glamour)

"Whitaker captures the human frailties that beset everyone - jealousy, anger, insecurity, trauma, the search for love - and weaves them into a compelling story of friendship, self-destruction, and salvation." (Library Journal)

More from the same

What listeners say about The Animators

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

It’s okay but....

A little self indulgent, and doesn’t really go anywhere. Towards the end I was looking for some sort of message from the book, yet there wasn’t one. It was also really long and drawn out at the end. I was waiting for it to finish.

Positives of the book include a good narration and up until the half way through point it was enjoyable- it left you wonder where it was going. It’s only towards the latter part of the book that it begins to dawn on you that it isn’t really going anywhere. Up until this point you forgave the self indulgent nature of the book, putting down to character development, but it unfortunately never really evolves beyond that.

In summary, it’s a slow start that begins to pick up and become interesting only to plummet into a looooong drawn out ending and over all, it is unbelievable as a story. Whilst the book wasn’t terrible, I certainly would t recommend it and would never consider reading it again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!