thank you to NetGalley + the publisher for the ARC!!

WOWIE i loved loved LOVED this book!! all the characters were flawed and i loved them for it. i was hooked from the beginning and found myself really rooting for Kat, regardless of her past and her scandals. and, since we’re talking scandals for a second, the drama was EVERYTHING!! going into this book, i expected it to be a thriller but it was definitely just a great piece of fiction. i truly loved and enjoyed this book and was sad when it ended. a fantastic read!!! 4.75 stars rounded up to 5!!!! I’d highly recommend

Someone described this as interview style storytelling of Daisy Jones with the ice skating drama of I,Tonya -- and that was 100% correct. This is a story across 40 years and multiple figure skating competitions. There is passion, anger, and sequins. Was fun to see all the side characters and loved the quirky cast! Multiple times I gasped!

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this arc! Comes out in January 2025!

I loved this book What an amazing reading experience. It was a completely compelling figure skating drama. High soap opera in the best way. Not campy whatsoever..

Lynn Fargo's Favorites is hard to categorize--it doesn't fall squarely within the romance genre and the basic prose doesn't elevate it to literary fiction. Nevertheless, as you follow the main character through the world of competitive ice dancing, parts of the story are. propulsive. The book is most compelling when the author describes the unique aspects of the sport of ice dancing (which I knew very little about prior to reading this book). However, the character development was lacking. It was hard to understand the motivations or rationales of many characters including the protagonist's main and only love interest. Still, if you're looking for an easy-to-read, page-turner that doesn't require a lot of you, this might be the right book for the moment.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sharing this book’s digital reviewer copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I wanted to love this book a lot more than I actually did.

I love when a book has drama or love triangles so that did not put me off in any way. I really just had a hard time connecting with these characters - and I didn't feel any kind of attachment to Kat and Heath. I do feel like it was very technical even for someone who enjoys watching figure skating like myself. Listen - I loved the drama between Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in the 90's, but I feel like it was over the top with The Favorites.

I know it's only February as I write this review, but I think The Favorites by Layne Fargo is going to be one of my favorite new book releases of 2025.

Growing up, I loved the movie Ice Princess. It's a young adult coming of age movie about a high school math whiz who uses her love for equations to help her learn to land massive jumps on the ice skating rink. It might have been a little farfetched, but the acting was good and the story really intrigued me. I just had to know if she would wind up going to Harvard for college (which is what her mom wants), or if she would pursue ice skating and try to go all the way to the Olympics.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo felt a little similar, because it's about two friends who grew up ice dancing together and decide in their teen years that they want to try to compete and go pro. But Heath is an orphan and Katerina is under the guardianship of her alcoholic older brother. Neither of them has much in the way of money or support. So from the beginning of the book (as they prepare for their first competition) until the end of the book (their final... performance) it's safe to say that there is a lot that goes on in their skating journey.

I loved the format of this book. The premise is that a documentary is being filmed about Katerina Shaw and Heath Rocha, and their final skate. It's very mysterious. Different people who knew them during their careers are interviewed for the film. Clips and scenes are described along with the conversations, so you really feel like you're taking in a documentary.

My rating for this book is 5 stars, because it's a story that I truly loved and will be recommending to all my friends. My only critique is that I would have liked more scenes from the past, explaining the relationship between Heath and Kat. When we meet them, they are teenagers who are a couple, as well as skating partners. Throughout the book everyone talks about their love and their passion for each other. But in my opinion, I would have liked to know more about how they got there. I felt that part of the story was a little lacking.

If you like Ice Princess, The Cutting Edge, Daisy Jones and the Six, and complicated romances... Well, this book is for you! If you're anything like me, you won't be able to put it down once you start reading.

This was great, I loved it.

As a figure skating-obsessed girlie, I loved this. I

I loved the mix of prose and documentary-style writing to tell the story and how accurate this was to the figure skating world.

loved this story. I'm a sucker for the Olympics & this book brought the drama in a way I didn't know I needed.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo is a love story set in the world of Olympic ice dancing.

Katarina and Heath move from childhood friends to champion partners until a scandal tears them apart.

the book is written through the lens of a documentary with points of view in between chapters from supporting characters.

it's a great read about ambition, obsession, and the cost of success.

I wasn’t a fan of this book and was a bit disappointed because I loved this authors book They Never Learn so was shocked that it wasn’t a thriller but felt more like a skating memoir. I didn’t like the characters at all as they felt very childish and spoiled but towards the end they do mature more but it did feel like too late for me. Just wasn’t for me.

🎇 Review 🎇

I have been a fan of Layne Fargo since her debut….Actually obsessed with her.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her newest book. I was curious a book about ice skating gone wrong with a bit of romance?!

Oh my goodness Fargo always delivers! Her writing is flawless and her characterization is spot on. She has a way of grabbing her readers from the first page and taking you on one heck of a wild ride.

The Favorites is yet another slam dunk by Fargo. I love how I am so immersed in her stories and feel like I’m right there with the characters.

Dark, juicy, wild, and unpredictable!!

I cannot wait to see what @laynefargo has up her sleeve next. I hope it’s just as dark and juicy.

Thank you to #partner @randomhouse @laynefargo for my copy.

4.5/5 star

Thank you to the author and publisher for my copy.

Holy Skateballs, Batman!
The Favorites will undoubtedly be one of my favorites of 2025.
This book has it all: romance, action, deceit, betrayal, and alllllll the drama.
It is FAN*FREAKING*TASTIC!

This was my first Layne Fargo book. To be totally frank, I felt so many emotions while reading this, that it's hard to give this book a rating. It was, in a word, PHENOMENAL. I was pulled in right away with the idea of ice dancers, which is a deeply artistic, difficult, and yet romantic, feeling, sport. Katarina are Heath's journey is raw. Difficult and so heartfelt, in a way that only these two could have had. Their life is wrought with hardships and elements that truly had me feeling for them. The way they loved each other was complex, but pure in it's own way. Their journey was not straight. It had heartbreaking lifts and falls, and towards the end, I wasn't even sure they'd end up together-at which point I speed-read like Roadrunner to get through the remainder of the book, and I'm pretty sure I said something under my breath like, "If this book ends this way I'm gonna need wine."-but fortunately, my girl Layne took care of me. ;) This is the easiest five-star rating I've given in awhile, and is certain to be one of my top reads of the year.

I also had the audiobook of this, after publication date as I was enjoying it SO much. Again, PHENOMENAL.

See the theme here?

READ IT!!!

This book was my absolute pleasure to read and review. Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley, and Layne for this book.

The easiest 5 stars I’ve given a book in a long time. I will be recommending this to EVERYONE. I could not put this one down. Petition for a series asap- I need to see this played out on screen. My heart hurt for Kat and Heath many times during this read but wow, the growth from Kat was so beautiful. Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Random House publishing for this ARC.

[4.5 stars]

The Favorites has been the talk of the book world lately...whether you loved its soap opera-esque drama or thought it was too melodramatic. I was personally in the mood for melodrama when I read it and lapped up every over-the-top scandalous twist and turn.⁠
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The Favorites is a dark, intense love story set in the very messed up world of Olympic level ice dancing...is there a more perfect book for me? This story is inspired by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and there are some fun Wuthering Heights Easter eggs in here (but, you don't have to be familiar with the original classic to love The Favorites...I sure wasn't). ⁠
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The Favorites is a scandalous, dramatic /often melodramatic, cutthroat, hot, immersive, horrifying, but most importantly, addictive and riveting story. Our main characters, Heath and Kat, are enmeshed with each other their entire lives - sometimes through red hot love and sometimes through white hot rage. Pretty much all the characters in this story are dislikable, but there’s massive growth for them by the end. ⁠
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I loved the oral history-esque structural element of this story...chapters from Kat's perspective are interspersed with transcript segments from a "10 years later" documentary about the Heath / Kat partnership. ⁠
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The Favorites is perfect for fans of the cult hit movie The Cutting Edge (with Moira Kelly), but it's 10x more scandalous and dramatic. ⁠
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PS - the writing isn’t amazing, which is why I rated it 4.5 rather than 5 stars), but I didn’t care. I was furiously turning those pages.

I loved this book. Loved the vibes, loved the tension, loved the characters, and loved even the costumes. Fargo has an absolute winner on her hands.

Wow, just wow! I LOVED this one, it was so good! It kind of reminded me of Daisy Jones and the Six, with how it was written. I am a big fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid, so anything that sounds like her writing I am on board with. The story was able to rope me in from the very first page. The storytelling was so compelling, it felt like these figure skaters were real people, and it made me so invested that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I've said this before and I will say it again, I'm not a huge sports person, so if an author can make me interested in a plot centered heavily around a sport, then it's good writing. As far as characters go I liked both Kat and Heath. Kat was a strong and interesting FMC, and Heath was a complex and interesting character (although he annoyed me at points, I still liked him). The romance between them both was fantastic, it was messy, they were obsessive over each other (and winning), it was *chefs kiss*. Overall this was extremely well done, there wasn't anything I didn't like about it. Hence why I gave it 5 stars! So far my favorite book I've read this year, and I will be buying my own copy to add to my home library.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!

What a crazy book!!! I couldn’t put it down. The character development and storyline were addicting!! So much drama and backstabbing. I never knew what direction the story was going to go because all of the characters were ruthless and borderline villainous. I loved it!

I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because I hate it when authors use preeclampsia and bedrest as a drama plot point. This shouldn’t be on the page as something to make the story more dramatic, when in real life it’s scary. But I’m bias

The Favorites by Layne Fargo is the story of two champion ice dancers and their obsession with each other. Sometimes that obsession was romantic and sometimes it was heartbreaking. This story will suck you in from the very start and keep you entertained until the very end. Highly recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

This book had such good story telling. I couldn’t put it down and wanted to know where the main characters were going to end up,

Unfortunately this book was not for me! I really, really wanted to love it but I just could not connect to any of the characters enough to care about them and I thought the drama was just too much. I love Wuthering Heights and I was excited about the comparisons to Daisy Jones but this one just did not live up to the hype.