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The Animators
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Alex McKenna
- Length: 15 hrs and 24 mins
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Publisher's 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)
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)
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Story
Marianne is eight years old when her mother goes missing. Left behind with her baby brother and grieving father in a ramshackle house on the edge of a village, she clings to the fragmented memories of her mother's love: the smell of fresh herbs, the games they played, and the songs and stories of her childhood. As time passes, Marianne struggles to adjust, fixated on her mother's disappearance and the secrets she's sure her father is keeping from her. Discovering a medieval poem called Pearl and trusting in its promise of consolation, Marianne sets out to make a visual illustration of it.
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a meditation of memory, grief, and motherhood.
- By Barbara S on 10-08-23
By: Siân Hughes
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Even as We Breathe
- A Novel
- By: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle
- Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. With World War II raging in Europe, the inn is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. Soon, Cowney's refuge becomes a cage when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing.
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Worth every second of listening time and more
- By Maang on 05-04-24
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Rainbow Milk
- A Novel
- By: Paul Mendez
- Narrated by: Paul Mendez
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country.
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5 ✨
- By Anonymous User on 03-22-24
By: Paul Mendez
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The Honor Girl
- By: Grace Livingston Hill
- Narrated by: Anne Hancock
- Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Elsie Hathaway has it all: beauty, brains, and a strong work ethic. Taken in by her aunt's loving family after her mother's death, Elsie has had every advantage and earned every honor her school bestows. Her older brothers and her father remained in the family home and over the years their visits to each other were sporadic. But one day she drops by unannounced and discovers that this is the place where she is needed most.
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Influence of a good woman
- By Karen Sue on 01-11-24
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Little Monsters
- By: Kara Thomas
- Narrated by: Phoebe Strole, Brittany Pressley
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Kacey is the new girl in Broken Falls. When she moved in with her father, she stepped into a brand-new life. A life with a stepbrother, a stepmother, and, strangest of all, an adoring younger half sister. Kacey's new life is eerily charming compared with the wild highs and lows of the old one she lived with her volatile mother. And everyone is so nice in Broken Falls - she's even been welcomed into a tight new circle of friends. Bailey and Jade invite her to do everything with them.
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Superb!
- By LoCFo22 on 08-03-17
By: Kara Thomas
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Whistling Past the Graveyard
- By: Susan Crandall
- Narrated by: Amy Rubinate
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.
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Thank You Baby Jesus!
- By tooonce72 on 11-20-13
By: Susan Crandall
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Just an Ordinary Day
- Stories
- By: Shirley Jackson
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Acclaimed in her own time for her short story “The Lottery” and her novel The Haunting of Hill House - classics ranking with the work of Edgar Allan Poe - Shirley Jackson blazed a path for contemporary writers with her explorations of evil, madness, and cruelty. Soon after her untimely death in 1965, Jackson’s children discovered a treasure trove of previously unpublished and uncollected stories, many of which are brought together in this remarkable collection.
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Captures a Bygone Era
- By Anonymous User on 11-11-22
By: Shirley Jackson
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Five-Carat Soul
- By: James McBride
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Nile Bullock, Prentice Onayemi, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The stories in Five-Carat Soul - none of them ever published before - spring from the place where identity, humanity, and history converge. They’re funny and poignant, insightful and unpredictable, imaginative and authentic - all told with McBride’s unrivaled storytelling skill and meticulous eye for character and detail. McBride explores the ways we learn from the world and the people around us. An antiques dealer discovers that a legendary toy commissioned by Civil War General Robert E. Lee now sits in the home of a black minister in Queens.
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Listen. Just listen.
- By Rebbe Don Justino on 12-26-17
By: James McBride
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The Celebrants
- A Read with Jenna Pick (A Novel)
- By: Steven Rowley
- Narrated by: Steven Rowley
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation from Berkeley when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,” celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living.
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Just okay
- By kristine Barnes on 06-27-23
By: Steven Rowley
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The Last of the Moon Girls
- By: Barbara Davis
- Narrated by: Sarah Mollo-Christensen
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Lizzy Moon never wanted Moon Girl Farm. Eight years ago, she left the land that nine generations of gifted healers had tended, determined to distance herself from the whispers about her family’s strange legacy. But when her beloved grandmother Althea dies, Lizzy must return and face the tragedy still hanging over the farm’s withered lavender fields: the unsolved murders of two young girls, and the cruel accusations that followed Althea to her grave.
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outstanding book
- By Alyssa Amori on 08-03-20
By: Barbara Davis
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All We Ever Wanted
- A Novel
- By: Emily Giffin
- Narrated by: Dorothy Dillingham Blue, Milton Bagby, Catherine Taber
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Nina Browning is living the good life after marrying into Nashville's elite. More recently, her husband made a fortune selling his tech business, and their adored son has been accepted to Princeton. Yet sometimes the middle-class small-town girl in Nina wonders if she's strayed from the person she once was. Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs while struggling to raise his headstrong daughter, Lyla. His road has been lonely, long, and hard, but he finally starts to relax after Lyla earns a scholarship to Windsor Academy, Nashville's most prestigious private school.
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Narrator choice for Tom is bizarre!
- By R. Cornelius on 06-28-18
By: Emily Giffin
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Late Bloomers
- A Novel
- By: Deepa Varadarajan
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Deepa Samuel, Shahjehan Khan, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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After thirty-six years of a dutiful but unhappy arranged marriage, recently divorced Suresh and Lata Raman find themselves starting new paths in life. Suresh is trying to navigate the world of online dating on a website that caters to Indians and is striking out at every turn—until he meets a mysterious, devastatingly attractive younger woman who seems to be smitten with him. Lata is enjoying her newfound independence, but she's caught off guard when a professor in his early sixties starts to flirt with her.
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Heartwarming and fun!
- By nyjeri whipps on 08-11-23
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The Books of Jacob
- A Novel
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Allen Lewis Rickman, Gilli Messer
- Length: 35 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the mid-18th century, as new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following.
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Dense & Difficult But Rewarding
- By Nick O. on 02-28-22
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
What listeners say about The Animators
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Margaret
- 02-25-17
Excellent!
Any additional comments?
I loved "The Animators". It is so raw. I actually felt like I was listening to a memoir rather than a novel. Excellent narration by Alex McKenna. This was so out of my normal listening range, BUT I Loved it!
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7 people found this helpful
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- Bonny
- 02-25-17
This is a story about much more than cartoons
I'm not a big fan of animation, animé, manga, comics, or even graphic novels, but I decided to take a friend's recent advice and choose a book by its cover. Luckily for me, The Animators contained an interesting and well-told story within its covers. Two women, Melody Vaught and Sharon Kisses, meet in college and become friends and partners in animating short films that tell the stories of their lives. Both women grew up in almost unbelievably awful families, and Mel and Sharon are both grateful to find another person that understands them so well.
"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."
Sharon and Mel's long-lived collaboration and deep friendship results in some career success, but they also face personal dangers inherent in accepting the things your soulmate does, especially if those things are destructive behaviors. This is an original story, with humor, unexpected drama, interesting musings about art, some incredible dysfunction, and lots of great writing about trust, friendship, and healing.
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6 people found this helpful
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- This Curly Arab
- 08-10-18
A beautiful friendship
This is a book about friendship, deep adoration and love. I was left with hope and a small sadness when it ended. Great work Kayla Rae!
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- B.J.
- 10-17-18
Wow! What a wonderful surprise!
I LOVE this book. Here's why:
1. The writing is original and authentic. The dialogue is real. The characters are real.
2. If creativity is a part of your being, this book describes the highs and lows, exhilaration and desperation of creating something/anything. I've just never read anything where the author got it so right.
3. The narration is perfect. Spot on.
This is a stunning debut. There's something really special about it. I was reminded me of another terrific debut from a dozen years ago -- Marisha Pessl's "Special Topics in Calamity Physics."
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer Masterson
- 10-03-17
I absolutely loved this book!
I finished The Animators a few days ago and I can't stop thinking about it. Book hangovers are rare for me. The narrator was awesome! Highly recommended!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Fiona
- 05-21-17
Fiona k
I loved this book! The narration was excellent & the story never went where I expected it to. A complex and beautiful portrayal of female friendship and partnership. A rewarding read
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2 people found this helpful
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- Beverly
- 04-14-17
Fantastic! Beautiful, funny, and emotional
I have only given a handful of books 5 star ratings. I love this book. It's just the right mix of hope and tragedy, Hicksville and urban, trashy and class. Perfect!
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2 people found this helpful
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- accordion thief
- 04-06-24
Irrefutable Love
A book about sweet, messy love. Friend love, family love, the love of art...
So good.
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- Emmanuela Thornsberry
- 03-01-17
Not chick-lit.
I assumed that a female writer, writing about friendship, would have a sappy handle on the story. I was so incredibly wrong. This story is gritty and painful at times. It is not a quick read, which is why I downloaded the audio to assist. It is an immersive story that takes time to absorb. The reader has no idea how to pronounce "Caudill" as it would be pronounced in east Ky. Beyond that, stellar job!
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9 people found this helpful
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- diane
- 02-11-18
Great Story
The characters were richly and realistically developed. The story had enough complexity to hold my interest.
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