The Animators

Sharon Kisses and Meg Vaught meet in their college art course. They are both extremely talented cartoonists. After they finish college, they go on to create a cartoon about Meg’s life, called “Nashville Combat.” It largely focuses on Meg’s wild, alcoholic mother, who is now in prison. Their film is very successful and Meg spins out of control, drinking and doing drugs. She gets news that her mother was stabbed in prison and died of her injury. Meg and Sharon drive down to Florida to identify Meg’s mother’s body and to promote their film. Then everything spirals out of control, with Sharon ending up in the hospital and Meg sobering up. The two girls overcome some major challenges, but as soon as they reach the top again, they free fall back to the bottom. Meg and Sharon work well together, but are they also their own worst enemies?

This book was quite an emotional rollercoaster ride. I had to stop reading about a third of the way through and put it aside for a while. It was quite intense.

In the films that Meg and Sharon make, they address the hardships they have faced in their lives. Likewise, this book makes the reader look at her/his life in the same way. The story forces you to think about difficult subjects, such as rape, death, drug abuse, and heartbreak. The story pulls you in, so that you can’t avoid these problems, just like Meg and Sharon couldn’t escape these aspects of their lives.

I appreciated how this book addressed these important, inescapable topics. However, I felt overwhelmed by the wave of emotions that this book made me feel. This book was a little too intense for me.

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett