If you loved the movie “ The Cutting Edge” this book is for you! I loved every minute of both. An ice dance rivalry mixed with some romance and some very intense events. I could not predict most of this one which makes it a five star read for me!

This is my first book by Layne Fargo but won't be the last. These were characters that will stay with you and give you all the feels. With in depth flash backs and a look at their present time, it was a story woven through time and the testament of the relationship. Loved the ice skating element and a peek behind the facades to the true emotion and lasting impression. Great writing and can't wait to read more!

🙃🙃🙃 what did I just read? This gives Taylor Jenkins Reid vibes, so if you like DJ6 especially then this might be right up your alley.
This was so raved about in the book community, but I’m not sure it was my favorite. The first half kept me interested and the second just made me continually annoyed. Then the ending felt like such a cop out.
Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the arc

Overall a fantastic read with the various character voices plus the interviews made it a full, well written story. Growing up in the 80s/90s, the Olympics are a huge memory of mine. I loved the nostalgic vibe of the first part of the book plus the "behind the scenes" of the drama and hard work of Ice Skating competitively. The ending was a bit too tidy for me, but over all I rate 4.5!

Read if you like: figure skating, dramas, and Daisy Jones and the Six
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The book follows the tumultuous relationship between skating partners, Kat and Heath. Kat's dream is to win an Olympic gold medal. Heath's dream is to be with Kat. The two definitely don't have a healthy relationship, but I was captivated by their story and wanted to keep reading. This was also told through a series of interviews alongside the story, and this definitely gives Daisy Jones and the Six vibes. If you love dramatic stories, then this is for you!

WHAT DID I JUST READ? BINGED THIS BOOK IN ONE EVENING. I could not put it down. It’s been forever since a book has completely consumed me – and when I finished that very last page, I messaged @taras – a WTH just happened. Everything was so well done in this book. The twists kept me gasping until the end. This is my second book by this author – and I’m going to add her to my auto-buy list because it was that good. It was STRAIGHT UP ADDICTIVE – 100% drama, 120 % scandalous and 200% amazing. The documentary like story telling was genius. So much backstabbing, so many secrets and all the toxic dynamics – was really captured by the author. So so good!! This one deserves more than 5 stars. Thank you to NETGALLEY and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

What a wild ride! I am still trying to find the words to describe this book. It was full of drama that is for sure. I loved the documentary type parts. There were a few "twists" that really shocked me. But after the first few, it was kind of like okay this seems a little much. But overall, i really enjoyed this one and i would definitely recommend if you are looking for an unconventional romance with a lot of drama.

Thank you Random House publishing for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

figure skating? love triangle? drama? under-rated taylor swift song reference??? sign me up! I have loved this book and didn’t want it to end. it was so enjoyable and I know the year is early, but possibly my favorite book of the year?

I was addicted to reading this book - I didn’t want it to end. That said, I am not giving it a high rating because while it was very readable, I would expect strong character development in a 400+ page book. While Katerina was a fairly well realized character in the present tense, she lacked a strong backstory defining her motivations. The other characters were all very underdeveloped l, almost seeming like caricatures. I enjoyed for the drama, but the execution was missing depth.

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!