The Favorites holds up a mirror to the world of elite figure skating, but what's reflected there isn't always prestigious or glamorous. With coaches that are as much tormentors as they are cheerleaders, competitors that will stop at nothing to win (a club on the knee a la Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan is tame in comparison) and grueling training schedules that test even the strongest bodies and minds, the ice these athletes (some as young as twelve) skate on can be mighty thin. Told in "documentary style" (think Daisy Jones & the Six), and first person narrative, The Favorites is so engrossing you'll think no time has gone by when actually it's been hours. With dialogue as sharp as any blade (you'll laugh out loud at the insights and recollections of former men's skater Ellis Dean), and a plot that features romance, suspense, and intensity, The Favorites is a must read even if you don't know the difference between a twizzle (where a skater rotates one foot while moving across the ice), and a Twizzler candy. Every judge (reader!) will agree...The Favorites is a Perfect 10!

The thing I love most about this story was the characters. I loved their ruthlessness and dedication. Some characters weren’t even deserving of empathy or compassion at moments, but somehow I had empathy for them. If you are looking for something with gripping characters this is your book.

Katarina Shaw is a six star character! She deserves to be highlighted! Her complexity was very human and relatable. Even with her toxicity Fargo makes you care so much for Kat. I loved her growth throughout this book. By far one of my favorite characters. She is someone I would look up to has a women.

I was also hugely invested in the plot. I really enjoyed the documentary part of it. It was so interesting getting the prospective of side characters. Even though they didn’t play a huge role in the story their interviews add so much to the story. I felt as if I was there at every companion on the edge of my seat. I can’t forget all the surprises and plot twists this book had. I seriously didn’t see any of them coming.

I highly recommend this book especially if you are a Taylor Jenkins Reid fan.

I will definitely be picking up the physical copy when it comes out! Thank you so

Thank you Random House & NetGalley for a free eARC!

Rating — 4.5★

Wow. I have seen great early reviews for this novel. Most of them were posted alongside the song The Last Time by Taylor Swift. I don’t know how much more convincing I could have possibly needed.

The writing and the plot of this book reminded me a lot of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books. The little documentary interview sections really added to the story. Layne Fargo did an amazing job of adding the suspense of “what is going to happen next?!” that made it really hard for me to want to put the book down. If this documentary was real, i’d for sure watch it!

The characters and the circumstances in this novel seemed very real. I don’t know anything about the “real” figure skating world, but I could see some of the competitiveness shown on page being pretty realistic. The relationships between these characters are flawed, but you can tell that their connections are strong and they will always love each other despite their flaws by the end.

If you love reading about drama, this book is for you!!! There’s relationship drama, friendship drama, figure skating drama, coach drama. This was one of the main reasons I enjoyed this book so much honestly! The female main character, Kat, is not afraid to speak her mind even if it might make her less popular.

Again, if you are a Taylor Jenkins Reid fan, I think you will love this book! It publishes January 14, 2025.

Sometimes the right book finds you at the wrong time. Such was the case with this book, which I picked up and DNFd nearly a month ago.
Something in me said to try again, and I’m so glad I did.
This time I ripped through it.
The Favorites is a book which needs just a pinch of time to get into the flow of things, but once you’re in, you’re all in.
I was deeply invested and wish I could shake the version of myself that thought I wouldn’t adore this.

WOW. Not the happy, sappy romance I pictured ice dancing to be?! But SO FUN! THE DRAMA.
Kat was such a fierce, badass FMC. I’m sure there are some who would disagree, but I think she played everything right, and that gave her the ability to accept her skating fate and hold her head high. I loved that.
Bella is an absolute snake but probably a product of her raising…So do we forgive her? Eh.
Heath?! Man. I wanted so much more from him 😫😫😫 I DEFINITELY don’t forgive him.

This was suspenseful, romantic, dramatic, mysterious. This was EVERYTHING.

Kat and Heath are a dynamic figure skating duo whose relationship goes further than on the ice. With a format going between documentary-style interviews and Kat’s retelling of the story, this was one of my favorite books this year.

Highly recommend!

Daisy Jones and the Six but make it ice dancing. Oh, how I L-O-V-E-D this delicious tale of the often tumultuous relationship between ice dancing pair (both on and off the ice), Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha. I grew up watching ice skating in the glory days of the 90s and this story brought me right back there! This will probably be my last read of 2024, and what a way to end the year! 5 stars!!

This book was so unique- the way the persepectives shifted from the main character to the docuseries cast. LOVED the writing and did not want it to end. What a grand story this author wove… so many twists and turns, I could not predict it at all. The character development was ingenious and it didn’t get too intense with the ice dancing jargon, which I appreciated. Overall I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to read anything else this author writes!!

I couldn’t put this book down. I read it in one sitting and stayed up until 2am to finish it. I loved the complex relationships and the fact that you know that something tragic happened, but waiting to find out what happened is part of the mystery that keeps you reading.

thank you so much Penguin Random House for giving me an ARC of this one! I haven’t had a book rope me in and keep me up at night like this ALL YEAR. I’d constantly be telling myself - okay, only one more chapter, and then I’d finished the book. I was enthralled from the very beginning with Katarina and Heath, but also with the events taking place. This book was so well paced, and did a great job of keepjng the reader at the edge of their seat. With painfully believable and human characters, it felt raw and exposed in the best way possible. I’ll be thinking about this book for the forseeable future and nothing else. One of my favorite reads of the year!

Out of the 30+ books I’ve read in 2024, this is the ONLY ONE to which I wish I could give six stars. From the first page, it captivates you, pulls you into the magical world of ice dancing, and leaves you emotionally wrecked and craving more.

It beautifully captures the love and hate of Emily Brontë’s characters and puts a magnificently modern spin on them. As a figure-skating fan growing up, I loved how immersive Layne Fargo’s writing was. I truly felt like I was watching Heath and Katarina’s life and love stories unfold before my eyes.

If you’re looking for a way to jumpstart your 2025 reading journey, I wouldn’t recommend this book anymore. Other words to describe it? It is sensational, an emotional roller coaster, and a marvelous story about life, love, friendship, and ambition.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo is an epic, exhilarating story of ambition and obsession in the world of ice dance. Scandalous and thrilling, it perfectly captures the high-stakes world of elite competition, where every move on and off the ice could make or break a career. Fargo’s writing is as sharp as a skate’s blade, and the addictive plot kept me hooked from start to finish.

While the love story was a bit too toxic for me to fully root for, the book offered plenty of other juicy plotlines to keep me invested. If you love stories about fierce determination, complicated relationships, and the pursuit of perfection, this one is a gold-medal read!

*will post on Instagram closer to pub date* THE FAVORITES by Layne Fargo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Thank you @prhaudio and @netgally for the advanced release copies. STARTING THE YEAR OFF WITH A BANG! First of all, you must have audio for this book! The full cast and interview format make the audio phenomenal. Mark my words, this will be a movie or tv show. At times the drama and characters can be exhausting, but exhausting in a way where there’s no way you are putting the book down! Think Daisy Jones audio with a Wuthering Heights + ICE DANCING!

Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha are an ice dancing pair who end up training at a World Class training facility. They are childhood sweethearts, turned Ice Dancing Champions, turned dramatic scandal! 10 years after their final performance, a documentary gives a peek into what really happened.

Pub. Date: January 14, 2025.

Perfect if you like:
•Full cast audio!
•Endless juicy drama.
•Olympic ice dancing.
•Interview format.
•Toxic relationships.
•Backstabbing and no limits.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice: 🌶️
Mood: 🌮🍿🍷

⚠️: explicit language

✨ THE FAVORITES ✨
Rating: 5 ⭐️ - I LOVED it

Oh how this book SWOOPED in the last week of the year and landed in my TOP 10 books of the year!

❤️ for my LOVERS of ICE PRINCESS (iykyk) meets CARRIE SOTO meets DAISY JONES!

❤️ if you want to feel ALL the EMOTIONS then this is your book - amazement, hope, love, frustration, anger, a million OMG moments!

❤️ this story was SO ADDICTING! It’s close to 500 pages and I FLEW through it in a few short days - you are GRIPPED to the page!

❤️ oh these CHARACTERS - I love and hate you all 😅

❤️ I picked this one up physically but hearing STELLAR things about the audio - it’s a FULL CAST!

HUGE TY to @randomhouse for my ARC - this is undoubtedly going to be the hottest book of January and a buzzy book of 2025!

I really enjoyed this part-documentary style written, part first person narrated story of figure skater Katerina Shaw ⛸️

The story spans 15ish years as Katerina and her ice dance partner/love interest, Heath, grow up, and travel through the world of figure skating competition. Love the early 2000s/2010s timeline. Super bingeable read. If you ever loved watching figure skating as a kid like I did, or want to read a modern retelling of Wuthering Heights…this one could be for you. While the characters were all flawed in their way, I was totally invested in this one! Many thanks to Netgalley for the arc!

Thank you Netgalley for the digital ARC.

I stayed up way too late (and ended up calling in from work lol) to finish this book because I. Could. Not. Look. Away.

There’s so much tension and drama in this that I was hooked from the very start. Noy typically a fan of sport-centric theme in a book because sometimes it’s hard for me to follow along the commentary of it but ice skating is one of the only games I ever watch in the Olympics so this was a treat. I truly loved the format of the book: flashback interspered with documentary style interviews. For me, this book was reminiscent of Tomorrow x 3 but with competitive skating. The ending felt a little abrupt but it did tie up the ends nicely.

Overall, I truly enjoyed it and I’m disappointed that I didn’t read this sooner. I heard the audiobook is read by a full cast so I cannot wait to revisit this story again when it comes out!

Thank you for the ARC.

I decided to DNF this one. I love Layne Fargo's writing, and there was no exception here. I just couldn't care less about ice dancing and what goes into it. I understand this is a romance and I'm sure the romantic relationship develops throughout the book, but it was just too much detail on ice dancing for me.

4.5 ⭐️ If Carrie Soto is Back and Daisy Jones & the Six had a baby, it’s this book. Set in the Olympic skating (Ice Dancing) world, I couldn’t put this one down. Publishes mid January.

This is incredible & fascinating! I’m obsessed with Kat & Heath…their crazy love. I found a love for ice dancing while reading this & also looking up videos on YouTube! I loved the documentary portion of the book, the interview points.
Kat & Heath grew up poor but Kat KNEW she wanted to be an ice dancer! An Olympic GOLD medalist! &&& Heath…he just loved her enough to be anything she wanted! They were perfect & tragic!
The first 1/2 of this book was incredible & fast paced…I was obsessed! The second half got a little wild…I was pretty shocked with a few of the twists…not sure I was a fan. But the ending (before the ending) was a showstopper! OBSESSED with this book! I KNOW this is gonna be some BIG book club picks!

It's early, but I'm calling it now: I think this might be one of my favorite 2025 releases, and it might become one of my go-to recommendations for the year.

This is a Wuthering Heights retelling set in the world of early 2000s competitive ice dancing. Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha are childhood best friends turned lovers turned enemies and legendary ice dancing partners. With a documentary coming out about their fateful last dance, Kat puts the record straight, interspersed with interview transcripts from those in the ice dancing world around her.

Passionate, fiery, and salacious in the best way, I had so much FUN reading this - I didn't want to put it down. I think Fargo did a nice job paying homage to the source material while also putting her own spin on it - I would say that reading a plot summary of Wuthering Heights is probably sufficient background information to enjoy this. Kat is SUCH an unapologetic bitch, and I absolutely loved her. I also completely bought the tension between her and Heath - they were so bad for each other but also so good.

If you like women's wrongs, sports, and modern retellings, this is a must. It reminds me a little of Carrie Soto is Back - if you enjoyed that, you might like this too. A full, enthusiastic 5 stars from me!