The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker is a novel about two female animators who meet in art school in NYC and set up a studio together to make adult animated films based on their lives. It is partly about their process, and what it means to be an artist, but mostly about their friendship and their raumatic childhoods, one in Florida, the other in Kentucky. Their decade long relationship is the strongest thing in both of their lives, but it can’t necessarily save them.

A fast paced, honest, funny, and at times painful debut by a great new writer.