4.5 stars. As a lifelong figure skating fan and former skater myself, I was thrilled to read a book about the world of competitive ice dance! A loose retelling of Wuthering Heights, the book follows the ice dance careers of Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha, full of romance, drama, and fierce competition. You do not need to have read the classic in order to love this one though--I read it in high school and remembered very little and still enjoyed this book. The author clearly understands the world of ice dancing, and it was so refreshing to read a sports romance that was actually accurate to the sport. This book is told partially through the script of a documentary film and Katarina's perspective, and is very cinematic in nature and could easily be adapted to a film or TV series. Though 448 pages long, you'll eagerly keep turning the pages to find out what happens next in to Kat and Heath. If you're a figure skating fan, definitely add this to your TBR!

Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha claw their way to the top of the ice dancing world time and time again in this book, only to be ripped away from each other and their dreams in one way or another. Their love story was achingly beautiful and their ice dancing saga was scandalous and addictive. I was as obsessed with this book as Heath and Katarina were with each other. This is a fairly long book, but I loved every minute of it. I loved Katarina and Heath in their own ways and was rooting for them (as ice dancing partners and lovers) so hard. There was a great cast of side characters in this book as well. The way the documentary commentary was interspersed throughout the book was well-done and only added to the story. This book deserves a gold medal!

**ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this novel. I loved Layne Fargo's first book and so I was excited to read this one. It is very different but I absolutely loved it. The characters were well developed, the story was interesting and engaging..thank you!

5⭐️
You ever read a book and instantly know it gonna be a favorite? This was that book for me! It made me feel all the emotions and sucked me into the book having me anxiously turning each page. This book is scandalous, thrilling, and ADDICTING to read. This was so much more than a sports romance. This highlights how far people can/will go to win, power dynamics, manipulations, sacrificing everything for a goal, and more all in the lens of the competitive ice skating world.

From the moment we meet Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha, we instantly feel for them due to both of their individual dire home situations. They escape into each other and skating as a reprieve from their situations and a way to make a life for themselves. They are childhood sweethearts who run away from home to begin their journey to become Olympic ice skaters. Their relationship over the years is manipulative, toxic, dysfunctional, passionate, and FILLED with so much damn love. They truly are each other's’ home from the very beginning.

Kat and Heath get a chance to train with the Lin twins, children of legendary Olympic skater Sheila Lin, and everything changes from that moment. I absolutely adored Grant and Bella as the main side characters for what they brought to the story and how they challenged Kat and Heath. From their first meeting, these four become intertwined into roller coaster relationships and moments that truly had my heart breaking at times. After an incident happens, their four lives are changed forever.

Flash forward 10 years later, a documentary is being made about that fateful incident and the aftermath of consequences in caused. I love how the story uses the documentary interviews to show the reader Kat and Heath’s story of escaping their hometime, their true relationships with the Lin twins, and their journey to the Olympics. In these interviews, we get more perspectives from other characters essential to the story including past coaches, rivals, and Ellis Dean, gossip blogger/friend. Through the documentary, we learn what truly happened 10 years prior during the incident, if Kat and Heath had a successful comeback, and where their love story ends years later.

I freaking adored this book and it is one of my favorite (no pun intended) reads of the year!! These characters reminded me of the characters in Magnolia Parks at times were you want to slap some sense into them but you can’t help but love them endlessly because they are being unapologetically themselves. Katarina makes you hate her at times for her blind focus on winning the gold medal despite other people’s feelings but you respect her drive and passion. Heath, MY SWEET BOY. Heath is loyal to a fault at times because he let others treat him like crap and never defended himself. Bella was reckless in her actions to achieving her goals but was also the first person to be honest with Kat and call her out on her shit. Finally, Garret was the peacemaker between the four and truly the most supportive friend in the whole book. I connected to every single character in one way or another and went on the widest range of emotions with them.

The Favorites is one of the books that you can perfectly picture in your mind as a movie. It is drama filled, packed with tension, thrilling, and passionate. It had me gasping at thrilling parts and sobbing at the truly heartbreaking parts. The ending (or dare I saw the true beginning) of this book was absolutely perfect. I could not have thought of a better end for all of the characters. This is the first Layne Fargo book I’ve read but she has made a HUGE fan out of me! I will now be reading her backlist and everything she releases in the future!

Thank you endlessly to Netgalley, Random House Publishing, and Layne Fargo for the chance to read this INCREDIBLE book! I can't wait to get my hands on a copy next year!!

I used to LOVE watching the winter olympics, and especially the figure skating portions, but this would be a book first for me. The story centers around Katrina Shaw and Heath Roca. The night her mother died, Katrina watched dance skating icon, Sheila Lin and was hooked. She becomes consumed and will stop at nothing to reach the very top. Heath, is a foster kid who bounced from home to home until meeting Katrina. They instantly click and become skating partners. When Kat's dad passes away suddenly, it's up to her older brother Lee to raise her. However Lee would rather drink and HATES Heath.

Two kids, with nothing to their name, are invited to a summer practice session by the one and only Sheila Lin. They leave behind everything, saving every penny they can just to make it to LA.

What happens next is a whirlwind.

Katrina will stop at nothing to win, making it to the Olympics, her only goal and she doesn't care who she has to step on to get there.

This is a slow burn obsession of a romance that will suck you in and spit you out. The writing style and story line kept pulling me back in for more. You'll hate Katrina, and you will love her. In fact, you'll probably have a love/hate thing for most of the characters, but you'll keep reading because you'll have to know if she ever gets the gold.

Wuthering Heights meets Daisy Jones, but make it ice skating. That's the best way to describe The Favorites!
This book alternates between a documentary style chapters and the FMC's POV chapters, which I really enjoyed. I just loved watching the way the drama unfolded and how Layne Fargo portraited competitive environment of the sport. I did feel like the last 30-20% of the book lost me a bit, it just wasn't grabbing my attention like the beginning did. There is a small issue with the pacing in my opinion.
Overall, I enjoyed this!! It was fun.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC!

I would like to thank Net galley and Random House for the opportunity to read this as an ARC.I really liked this book. My criteria for a 5 star include- thinking about the book when I am not reading it and not wanting to stop reading it. This book met both! Looking at some of the reviews, I realize that this book may not be for everybody. It does get a bit melodramatic or "soap opera ish" at times. However, I love both of those genres, so it was a treat. I am 70, and read Wuthering Heights( which acted as inspiration for this book), while in High school. I also re read it a few months back, while taking a course on the Bronte's in my adult Life Long Learning Class. I loved Wuthering Heights as a teenager, not so much as an adult. This book is not a retelling, or a reimagining. Some of the names hearken back to the original( Kat Shaw and Heath for Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliffe, for example). There is the theme of star crossed love,and people trying to come between them.However, it is very much its own story. On my re reading of WH, I realized the characters are for the most part, unlikeable. That is also true in this story, but it works The story is set in the 2010 s and 2020s. And it is set in the world of Ice Dancing. I always watched The Olympics growing up, and I remember when Ice Dancing finally became an Olympic Sport in the 70's. Prior to that, we saw it during the national and world champion ships on Wide World of Sports :) Kat and Heath are ice dancers, who grew up poor in Illinois. Isabella and Garrett are twins, born of an Olympic Ice dance Champion, who have had every advantage. We track the trajectory of these 4 skaters, along with several others. It is framed as s TV Documentary , with sound bites given by a a number of people, other skaters, judges, etc , who comment on Kat and Heath's skating and lives. It is interspersed with narrative from Kat about her life and memories.It is well written and never dull. I really enjoyed it.

What can I say? The Favorites is a favorite, a top read for me in 2024 even though it won't be out until 2025!

I LOVED this book, Layne Fargo is a favorite author and this solidifies her as a must read, auto-buy author as we bookstagrammers say. I loved this book so much that I put off finishing it just because I was going to be sad to leave the story behind.

Why did I love this book? It's a wonderful ode to Wuthering Heights but also 100% it's own mesmerizing story of talent, ambition, revenge, love, anger, toxic spaces, and messy lives... all wrapped up in a soapy (in a good way) drama about ice dancers. Fargo's plot and character development is excellent, the pacing of the story had me hooked and holding on, staying up for just one more chapter, and the drop in perspectives from other characters/transcripts/blog posts added tension to the story, worked to bring in needed outside views and big picture themes, and also worked to bring in secondary characters into the story in an effective way.

Despite having zero interest in the Olympics or the cutthroat world of competitive ice dancing, this story really grabbed me. Raw, propulsive, and juicy, with toxic characters who’ll stop at nothing in the name of ambition—I just could not keep myself from turning the pages.

I really enjoyed the mixed media format, but felt Kat and Heath’s relationship came off way more interesting in the interviews, whereas it felt a bit flat in Kat’s narration.

I also really enjoyed Kat’s unexpected friendship with Bella, along with the latter’s character growth.

While I was totally captivated by the first 70%, I’ll admit that the last 30% lost me a bit. The twist was underwhelming, and I didn’t really quite get what the book was trying to be. Despite that, I found this to be an overall enjoyable read and was pretty satisfied with how the story wrapped up!

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the opportunity to read this ARC!

As a teenager, I was obsessed with competitive figure skating and my favorite movie was The Cutting Edge, so when I read the description of this book, it seemed right up my alley. We start toward the end of the story with the release of a no-holds-barred documentary about the controversial ice dancing couple of Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha. Then we go back in time to learn their story and follow their rise in the international ice dancing world, with transcripts from the documentary interspersed between the chapters. It's a love story on the one hand, but it's also a story about elite athletes who will do whatever it takes to be the best. There is a lot of drama -- changing partners, coaches pitting teams against each other, sex, secrets, sabotage. It's fast paced and entertaining, not unlike a TV expose. And it's a bit of fanfic, in the sense that in the world of Shaw and Rocha, the Americans are regularly dominating ice dancing. If you're a fan of the sport and want a fun romp, you might enjoy it.

“The Favorites” was such a fun, engaging book! I couldn’t put it down the entire time I was reading it.

It has a little something for everyone- competitive sports, romance, action, and a bit of mystery too. I was so caught up in the story that it flew by even though it was a longish book. I loved the short chapters and the format of having a first person narrative broken up by interviews for a documentary.

The characters and I had a love hate relationship! Kat is so competitive and stubborn that sometimes it could be off putting but overall I was really rooting for her the entire time. She actually reminded me a lot of Carrie Soto! Each character was flawed and I enjoyed that aspect of it. My only criticism is I wish Heath had a little more character development.

4.5 rounded up. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

The Favorites ⛸️

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pub Date: January 14, 2025

Kat and Heath are not only childhood sweethearts, but also ice dancing partners. Despite their rough backgrounds they are able to work their way up in the competitive (and gossip filled world) of competitive ice dancing. Kat will do anything to win, and Heath would do anything to hold onto Kat. Will the drama of this small world help them rise to the top, or tear them apart?

I freakin’ LOVED this one. This was literary fiction sprinkled with a touch of suspense. With the use of mixed media, the story is told from present day via interviews with people in the ice dancing world for a documentary. As well as in the past from Kat’s perspective. I really enjoy the little suspense that was brought in to keep me wondering what the hell happened that sparked this huge documentary to be made.

Fargo did an amazing job with the characters. I felt like I was somehow part of this world with them, and just loved how gritty everyone was. She also did a fantastic job of weaving this story full of twists and turns along the way. I never once was bored, or thought ‘why was this included?’

I’d highly recommend adding this unique story to your TBR when it is released in January. Who knew the world of competitive ice dancing would be so intense and fun to read about.

Wuthering Heights and ice dancing? That sounded right up my alley and, in this case, it was. This was such a fun, dramatic soap opera of a book. I didn't always like the characters, but I loved reading about them. It's been awhile since I read Wuthering Heights, but I feel like this book did it justice and made the story its own. It was the kind of highly entertaining book that I was sad to see end.

I read an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All comments are my own.

Deliciously scandalous.

At first I didn’t love the writing style and the storytelling in this one, but once I got used to it I was hooked. I really enjoyed the look at the ice dancing world - give me more ice skating sports romances please.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo portrays the salacious details of an inside look at competitive ice dancing, not to be confused with ice skating. The chapter format alternates between Katarina’s POV and a documentary format with snippets from judges, competitors, and reporters. While it initially captured my attention, about 45% through I found it somewhat catty among characters and it felt too much like a soap opera.

I had higher hopes for this book. While I loved the drama among competitors and the romance between Heath & Katarina, who grew up together, grew into fame together and whose relationship went through challenges, I was somewhat bored and looking forward to the end. It felt like there were a million competitions which I’m sure there are in a skater’s career, however I couldn’t keep track of which were which and how high the stakes were for each. I also thought the book could have been 100 pages shorter and still portrayed the intended drama and storylines.

Thank you to NetGalley, Layne Fargo and Random House for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Mark my words this is going to be a very popular title come January.

Entertaining, juicy, cutthroat fun. Enter the world of Figure Skating the same way we entered the world of Daisy Jones, told in a documentary style mixed with detailed chapters this book sucks you in and doesn’t quit.

My only issue is it’s about 100 pages too long and needed to be tightened up but nonetheless good solid entertainment.

Wuthering Heights meets Daisy Jones and the Six set in the ice dance world- I could not put this book down! I was obsessed. I loved the format of part narrative style/part transcript from a documentary about the events of the book. I've already started recommending this book, and I know it will be great for bookclubs!

This is an interesting novel that at times frustrated me. After doing a little behind the scenes research, realized this book is a modern retelling of Great Expectations. I’ve never read the inspiration story but the description seems utterly depressing. With that in mind, I can see some parallels so brace yourself for some complicated storylines. The comparison to Daisy Jones and the Six is in the expository nature of the storytelling. Captured like a documentary, the story gives behind the scene antidotes from people who are supporting characters in Katarina and Heath’s story. Loved the deep dive into the world of competitive ice dancing. So much I didn’t know about that is described in so much depth. At the heart of the story is a love story. A couple’s love that twists and turns. So much angst and many obstacles and I’m not sure if the ending was as satisfying as I thought it would be. Mixed feelings about this one but it will definitely have me thinking about it for awhile. 4 solid stars!

While not my favorite by this author, I did enjoy this! My one criticism: I wish there was more character depth/relationship detail and less ice dancing detail. Over all a solid 4 stars for me:)

I’ve never read a book by this author but I’ll definitely be checking out her other work. I’m a big fan of the way she set up and carried out the story. Definitely worth reading if you’re a fan of this genre!