This is definitely a top read of mine for 2025. I so appreciate the author taking us into the world of elite ice dancing because it is so unique.
Its all here : drama, passion, ambition, scandal and love.
I really enjoyed the interview style. I felt like I was reading about a real documentary and
I wanted to look up the dances.
It sure didn't feel like over 400 pages, I couldn't put it down!

This novel is an epic love story set in the ruthless world of elite figure skating, following Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha as they rise to Olympic fame.
Katarina is a bold protagonist who is hard to root for but even harder to look away from. The romance between Katarina and Heath is simmering and intense, but never overshadows their shared ambition and the sacrifices they make to stay at the top.
‘The Favorites’ has a gripping storyline, complex characters, and a unique writing style. If you’re a fan of sports dramas, romance, or just great storytelling, this book is definitely worth checking out!!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for this ARC.

This book is a hit-or-miss type. For me it was a miss, but I’m giving it three stars for loving the format, the wonderful FMC and the fact that it’s out-of-the-box having to deal with ice skating.
I didn’t find it very interesting, except for Katarina’s family. Her and Heath I felt had very little chemistry and the drama between the competitors were drawing on high school teenagers!
I can see why some readers would love this type of book, but it’s not my cup of tea.

In The Favorites, author Layne Fargo weaves an exciting women's fiction story about love, passion, ambition, scandal, and the determination to win in the world of figure skating.

Ice dancers Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha met at the local ice rink when they were kids. From the beginning of their partnership, they set their goal on one thing, the Olympic gold medal. Through trials and tribulations, highs and lows, and unprecedent success, Team Shaw-Rocha were the favorites to win Olympic gold in ice dancing, that is until a scandalous incident at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia brings a dramatic end to their partnership. On the tenth-year anniversary of the Sochi Winter Olympics, a documentary is released about the Shaw-Rocha partnership with salacious interviews and the unearthing of secrets about the pair from friends, rivals, and skating officials, Kat decides to stop the speculation and tell her own story.

The Favorites is a fascinating story that depicts the complexity of Kat and Heath's story. Their story is wrought with angsty drama, secrets, challenges, heartaches, betrayals, and their enduring bond of friendship/romance. I loved this story! If you are a fan of elite figure skating, then you must read this book! It was an exciting, dramatic, addictive look behind the curtains of the figure skating world. You can't help but get drawn into Kat and Heath's story, and how they took me on their journey to skate all the events leading up to the Winter Olympics.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I grew up as a diehard fan of elite figure skating. As I read this story, I felt like I was taken on one heck of an emotional roller coaster ride, and that this breathtaking story left me emotionally spent but wanting so much more. It just doesn't get any better than that.

The Favorites is a fascinating women's fiction tale that will keep the reader engaged from beginning to end!

https://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-favorites-by-layne-fargo-book-review.html

Layne Fargo delivers a sharp, intoxicating story with The Favorites, a novel full of power plays and the dangerous obsession to be the best, no matter what the cost. The story follows a cutthroat world where ambition and secrets come together. From backstage drama to an intense love affair, this look inside the world of competitive ice dancing will have you hooked from the very first page.

The characters—flawed, ambitious, and sometimes downright ruthless—are the kind you love to hate (or hate to love). I was drawn to Heath and Katarina as their dynamic is intense and layered with a deep love for each other but also a volatile connection that blurs the lines between their personal and professional lives.

While this was a long book and at times felt a bit repetitive, there was so much going on that it felt impossible not to keep reading! The formatting style is one of my favorites, as we see everything play out from Kat’s POV as well as a third person interview format from the documentary that is being filmed.

As many others have already said, I think this format will be absolutely perfect on audio! I loved the full cast narration and when you can get Johnny Weir as one of the audiobook narrators you know that you are in for a treat! If you love stories about ambition, deception, and the high stakes of success, this one will keep you enthralled until the very last page!

I love figure skating, and I especially love ice dancing when it comes with a story, so I have been overjoyed about this book before I even read it. Despite all of my excitement, it still managed to surpass my expectations and be one of the best books I read that year. The Favorites grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let you go. Told in the mixed style of a documentary and Katarina Shaw (our main character) narrating, we get all the drama of a pair of ice dancers who love each other and hate each other a little bit all at once (and then like, a lot). It is dramatic and over the top and also very distinctly human.

I was, in short, locked in the entire time that I was reading this book. It is so tense and so readable, and I don’t think that you need my love of ice dance to be able to fully appreciate it. I think my favourite part is that I never quite knew where the book was going to go, but that you get to understand the core of Katarina, and a little bit more about the people around her. It is so messy and I felt so many emotions towards all of the characters, not all positive. At its core though, it’s just a really good book. The characters, the plot, the mysteries and the intrigue, I was here for it all. And if it isn’t obvious enough already, I couldn’t recommend this enough.

DNF @ 10%

This book read like a boring documentary. After reading some of this and Daisy Jones and The Six, I've concluded I don't enjoy interview-style books.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Katarina Shaw is only four years old when she watches, rapt, as American ice dancer Sheila Lin and her partner, Kirk Lockwood, win a gold medal at the Olympics. She begins skating shortly thereafter, dreaming of being just like Sheila...even more so when she makes an unexpected comeback to the next Games, snagging another gold despite having become a mother of two in between. Kat wants to be an ice dancer just like her hero, but her small rink outside of Chicago is not teeming with potential partners. At least, not until she's nine and Heath Rocha, a foster kid at the rink for a hockey program for underprivileged youth, spots her from the stands and is entranced. The two team up, despite him having no resources at all and Kat's family having scant few themselves, and fall in love, bonded close together by Kat's goal of skating glory and their hardscrabble circumstances. They manage to qualify for US Nationals when they're 16, hoping against hope they can leverage their performance skills (he, especially, has some real deficits in the actual skating) and electric chemistry to grab the attention of a sponsor. Instead, they attract the attention of Sheila Lin herself...now the coach of her twin children, Bella and Garrett. Lin offers them a place in her exclusive ice dance school in Los Angeles, training alongside the siblings. Saying yes changes their course of their lives forever as they start to rise in the ranks, climbing ever closer to the Olympics and maybe even the gold medal Kat has wanted as long as she can remember. But nothing is fair in love, war, or figure skating. A retelling of Wuthering Heights, Layne Fargo mixes in a dash of Taylor Jenkins Reid, a bit of the dynamism of Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, and some Tonya Harding vibes to freshen up the story for the modern era. I read Wuthering Heights back in high school and didn't especially enjoy it. Its depiction of a set of characters who make each other romantically miserable felt melodramatic even as a teenager. so I enjoyed the ways Fargo changed some of the dynamics within the narrative with her book. Kat and Bella Lin are rivals, and Heath is a component of that rivalry, but ultimately they compete more over their shared ambition to win everything they can as skaters. Kat's relationship to Heath is profoundly important to her, but achieving what she can on the ice is even more so. It's definitely a page-turner, the oral history plot device and relatively short chapters give it a lot of momentum. But honestly, I failed to really get drawn into the story the way I was hoping, in part because of the relatively shallowness of the characters. Each has a few defining features but the only one whose head we really get into is Kat's, where we find little but drive towards gold. As a person who does seriously watch figure skating, I was prepared to be irritated by an unrealistic depiction of the sport, but though there are some relatively minor quibbles, Fargo gets the broad strokes right. It's an enjoyable read, perfect for the beach or an airplane!

The beginning takes us through their troubled teen years, which helps the reader understand why they are so desperate to succeed.
It gets a little messy towards the middle, but everything ties up perfectly with the ending.

This book is generating excitement! If you're passionate about Olympics figure dance skating, Russians, intrigue and intense rivalries, this is an absolute must-read! I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it to be a captivating and effortless read.

This was a page turning soapy drama about Olympic level ice dancers. A fan of The Cutting Edge movie, I couldn’t wait to read this book. This was one drama after another which made it very engrossing while at the same time a little eye rolling. If you want an escapist drama filled read that will give you Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan vibes, give it a try!

No notes. Such a good book. I loved the format and the flawed characters and the setting and the ice dancing and just all of it. Such a great way to start my year off!! I loved everything about it.

This is addicting but way more fun if you know Wuthering Heights or listen on audio! I've seen it categorized as romance...umm nope.

I can't understand why i didn't like this one as much as everyone else... I think maybe because I'm not into sports and competition books? Not sure! The audio was great but the story itself was just ok for me.

I really enjoyed reading The Favorites. The format with the interviews from the documentary woven in was very unique and enjoyable. I felt that the book dragged on in the second half and could have definitely been shorter, but it was still an enjoyable read.

Katarina Shaw has spent her whole life dreaming of ice skating in the Olympics. While she may not have a stable home life, or a whole lot of money, she has determination, talent, and her partner Heath Rocha. Heath is a foster child drawn into Katarina's world, and the duo begin to compete. As they rise in the ranks, their story gains national and international attention. They are drawn into the lives of the rich and powerful skating community that has ways of supporting and punishing Katarina and Heath. The passion between the pair on and off the ice makes them legendary as over the years they drift and apart and together, until the Olympic event that ends their partnership.

The book flips between Katarina telling her own story and a fake documentary chronicling her years on and off the ice. Layne Fargo's book made me care so much about ice dancing, in the same way that Challengers made me care about tennis. The central quartet of Katarina and Heath and the rich twins that become their greatest competition, friends, and enemies made for an exciting read full of twists, success, and betrayal. Since the book covers so many years of their lives, it moves fairly quickly and ensures something messy is always happening to someone. I also highly recommend the audio version, cause the full cast for the documentary portions of the book made it a lot of fun to listen to.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for a copy of The Favorites in exchange for an honest review.

Holy moly! The Favorites is only my second time reading a book by Layne Fargo and if she wasn’t an auto buy author for me before, she sure as hell is now. This book blew my mind with how well executed it was, and it is full of juicy drama, females kicking ass, and the wonderful world of competitive skating. I feel like I learned so much and felt so many things even though this book is *only* 434 pages long. The storyline arc was epic, and I found myself lost completely in the characters and the story.

And speaking of epic, the audiobook is really where it’s at with a full cast of narrators. There were many I haven’t heard before along with favorites like Christine Lakin. And let’s not forget the amazing Johnny Weir! How they got him to narrate is above my paygrade, but he was a star (obvi). This was hands down the best audio I have listened to in quite a while, and it gave me major Carrie Soto Is Back vibes. My heart felt like it was in a vice the entire time I was listening to this, and I wanted Katarina and Heath to not only succeed but end up together forever. The conclusion cinched it all together for me and I will not be forgetting about The Favorites anytime soon – if ever!

Read this if you enjoy books with excellent execution of mixed media, jaw-dropping drama, and emotional storylines that center around elite figure skating.

Audiobook Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
My Spice Rating: 🌶

My first 5 star read of 2025! I loved this book and everything about it! It deserves all the praise it is getting.

The Favorites by Fargo is reminiscent of Carrie Soto is Back by Reid. One is about figure skating and the other about tennis - 2 sports that I have no interest in - but both books are good. I liked the main characters in The Favorites, Kat and Heath and the Lin twins. They're intersecting lives were interesting and made for a good read. I also liked the backstory of figure skating and Russian relations and all of that.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher!
As someone who has watched “The Cutting Edge” more times than I can count, this book was absolute heaven. Katarina and Heath are a couple for the ages! Read this book immediately!!