Cheri's Reviews > The Animators

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4.5 Stars

““The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.” Pablo Picasso

Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel is exceptionally good.

When Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught are in the first moments of their friendship, it seems so fragile, so fraught with their individual tensions and angst. Inwardly, after checking out each other’s art work in class discussions, and a brief “what do you want to be when you grow up” type repartee, they realize they are two peas in a pod, two halves of the same sphere, each with their own uniqueness and talents. Yin and Yang. MFEO. At least in an art related way.

As this friendship grows, as they relax around the other, share more of themselves, their past, it becomes more a regular part of their life. As they graduate and move on with their post-college lives they form a more permanent bond, a business venture, so to speak. Still creating art, making a full-length video “Nashville Combat” based on Mel’s personal life when she was a young teen with a rather unconventional mother. She lays it all out there, for all the world to see what she endured. Not a pretty childhood.

Mel is a bit of a wild child, brash, living a bit on the edge herself. She attracts a lot of attention at events, at showings. She’s a bit compulsive and doesn’t like to be told what to do. She thrives on the attention of others, though, and is the star, at first, of all their events and showing. She survived her childhood in Florida’s swamplands by believing she could.

Sharon seems to withdraw even further into the shadows while Mel takes center stage. She’s more than happy if Mel answers all the questions about their work, and Mel eats it up. Still, if any interviews dare suggest that Sharon is just a lowly helper, or anything like, Mel is quick to defend her, acknowledging she couldn’t do without Sharon. Sharon has her own issues, public shyness aside. She lacks the courage and the belief in herself to accept who she is. Her family thinks poorly of her, that is, when they even bother to think of her at all. She survived her childhood in rural Kentucky by trying not to be noticed.

Down the road of years, living, surviving, they are each struggling with their own demons, and each other’s demons. Mel’s binging is out of control, and Sharon has no time to focus on her own problems when Mel’s problems are always taking Center Stage. And just when you think things will break apart… something happens to bring them closer together.

What I loved about these two flawed and fascinating characters was how real they were, how much I grew to really know them, and how I could feel their emotions, feel their moments of pain, sadness, love, sympathy, happiness and even anger. Devastation. It all felt as palpable as if they were telling me their own personal story. I love the settings, each of them, Kentucky, Louisiana, Florida, but most of all Brooklyn. Their loves and losses, frustrations and flirtations seemed authentic to their characters.

“And I knew just as surely, just as clearly, that life is not a work of art, and that the moment could not last.” – Norman Maclean


This is not a book for everyone, casual use of a long line of drugs, alcohol is frequently indulged in, or rather over-indulged in, so that’s one cautionary note. For those who prefer to avoid books with “cursing” there’s a significant amount.



Pub Date: 17 January 2017

Many thanks for the ARC provided by Random House, NetGalley, and author Kayla Rae Whitaker