Fake Skating is a childhood friends to estranged to fake lovers book. It's filled with so much teen angst. They never really dated so it isn't technically second chance but their friendship is a second chance. It was hard hearing Dani talk about the logistics and making friends and being neutral, high school and middle school can be difficult. I wanted to hear more about the 'mean girls' situation she was traumatized from. There were misunderstandings and I felt like we didnt get 100% closure from why she skipped on going to the hospital to visit Big John. The side character Benji felt like he had the potential to be a more well rounded villain but wasn't quite there.
The best parts are family relationships, friendships, and community. I liked that Dani was never into hockey and slowly realized how important it was to this small town. Her relationship with her hockey-legend grandfather Mick was beautiful to watch and my favorite part.

I absolutely loved Fake Skating. So many of my students love Lynn Painter, so I was thrilled to get my hands on this ARC.

Fake Skating tells the story of Dani and Alec, childhood best friends who drift apart, although they are unaware that the other person isn’t at fault…intentionally. When Dani and her mother move back to Southview (her mother’s hometown and the only place that has felt like home), Dani realizes that she must face Alec after he stopped communicating with her years earlier.

Their first meeting doesn’t go well, as both parties are resentful of the other for things that happened in the past. When Alec needs to rehab a less than stellar reputation to save his future hockey career, he proposes a fake relationship to Dani. In return, Dani can be the co-manager of the hockey team and hopefully secure her spot at Harvard, her dream college.

The fake relationship soon takes off and feelings become real. This fake dating/second chance romance was well-done. My students will be LIVING for this tension and yearning.

I will absolutely be recommending!

Lynn Painter does it again. This book was the perfect mix of fake dating and miscommunication and also made me feel all the feels. So cute.

This was a really cute book overall and a quick read. I liked both of the main characters and enjoyed the dual POV. I immediately picked up on the point of contention between the two characters, and knew that would likely be the "climax" of this book. However, it was pretty easily resolved, and we didn't spend too much time on "will they, won't they" which can get annoying. Overall very cute and enjoyable read and I know hockey romances are very popular right now so it's good to have a YA option :)

I will always love anything and everything by Lynn Painter. Truly the mastermind being sweet YA rom coms. I absolutely loved this take on a second chance romance, the dynamic between our FMC and MMC, and the background characters personalities.

Also I just felt like Dani was so real and I absolutely loved that!

4 stars

Thank you to #NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the advanced copy!

What to expect in this book:

-YA romance
-Dual POV
-High school + Hockey
-Childhood friends
-Fake dating
-Family drama + finding belonging

Thoughts

As always, Lynn Painter has NO BUSINESS writing books this cute. I LOVED this. I cannot remember the last time I devoured an over 400 page book so quickly. I was hesitant reading her newest YA right after just finishing "Maid for Each Other," her newest adult romance novel, but I loved reading them next to each other. While this is young adult fiction due to the fact that our main characters are high school seniors, I loved it and it gave me high school musical feels with the sports romance parts.

Dani and Alec were inseparable as children when they would spend the summers together. Dani's father is in the Air Force, so she spent much of her childhood going from place to place. Years later, Dani and her mom are back in Minnesota to stay. However, it has been five years since Dani and Alec last saw each other, and Alec is nothing like the boy she remembered him to be. Alec is a big hockey star in town. In an effort to fit in and make sense of her role, Dani is now pretending to date Alec. She is not only learning more about hockey, but who Alec is, and it is nothing less than complicated.

I truly enjoyed this whole book and found myself devouring it. It is everything you could want in a rom-com and as always from this author, we get fun pop-culture references, banter, and fun chemistry between our main characters. I saw some complaints from other readers about the language in this, and I will agree, the "f" word is not used sparingly, but it did not bother me. I think when you recognize these are 18 year olds and a younger audience should maybe not be reading that, it felt okay to me. Overall, I loved Dani and Alec. I loved the social anxiety representation and above all else, the relationship of Dani and her grandfather. I am not a sports romance person at all and did not feel like the sports part was overly discussed.

I highly recommend to romance readers who love a sweet happily ever after story and those who love a childhood friends to lovers plot. I will be anxiously awaiting the next Lynn Painter and highly recommend all of her books. My favorite YA of hers is The Do-Over and my favorite adult novel is now Maid for Each Other. Be on the lookout for this one in September!

Lynn Painter is one of the only authors from whom I will still read YA romance. She just knows how to write swoony stories about teenagers in love that make me, a thirty-year-old woman, wish I had experienced when I was in high school. Fake Skating is a sweet novel about childhood friends reconnecting and learning how to love each other again as two almost-adults while navigating very real issues with family and the fear of making the right decisions for the future. As a person with a strained relationship with a parent, I felt for Dani and her back-and-forth with her dad, wanting to earn and keep his love while understanding it should be freely given.

While I do think Better Than The Movies is still my fave from her, Fake Skating did scratch the itch BTTM left behind and I'm so thankful I got an ARC!

Oh Lynn Painter, how I love your writing! Whether it is Young Adult or Adult romance, her writing just makes me laugh and smile. Thank you NetGalley for this advanced copy of Fake Skating. Our main character moves with her mom, back to her mom's old house with her grumpy grandpa. A grumpy grandpa who is also a hockey legend in that town. This town is where Dani used to spend her summers with her best friend Alec. Fast forward a bunch of years now they are both seniors in high school and forced into a fake dating situation. Will their real feelings come to the surface? Will Alec, the town hockey God, make it to the playoffs? And will Dani get her life long dream of going to Harvard? Lots of laughs and lots of heart in this YA read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ebook in exchange for an honest review!
3.5/5, rounded up to 4
I genuinely enjoyed reading this book. It reads quickly and easily, and once I started, I basically read through it in one go. The main characters, Dani and Alec, have a lot of fun banter and I could see the “childhood crush” in how they interacted.
I’m subtracting a star for the lack of communication. One of my biggest pet peeves in writing is when characters have a misunderstanding that could have been resolved in .2 seconds if they actually talked to each other. That trope featured again and again in this book, which took my enjoyment down a notch or two.
I think Alec is a decently sympathetic romantic interest and POV character. He ended up having a lot of depth later on, but I wasn’t so fond of him in the first bit. The “I’m overwhelmed as a teen so I’ll go party, but not ACTUALLY do the bad thing that I’ll be blamed for” bit didn’t thrill me, and I failed to see why dating someone would reform his image for the scouts. He grew on me later, but to be honest, I didn’t see what Dani saw in him at first.
Dani was a more interesting character for me, since I also have anxiety, and had panic attacks in high school. I think the author does a good job portraying those, and I loved how she handled it overall. Dani is never called “weak” for her panic attacks; the other characters instead focus on the stress and trauma she had to go through to get to this point and put the blame on those responsible.
Overall, although I had some frustrations with the miscommunications that formed 75% of the plot conflict (if not more), it was a good read. I whipped through it and would recommend to people who enjoy more tropey romance.

No one writes young love like Lynn Painter!

It was sweet. It was swooney. It was even edge of your seat.

Dani is the daughter of an Air Force colonel and moves around a lot. But she’d spend every Summer in Southview, MN with her best friend Alec. They shared a first kiss and post cards using a special code alphabet. But the postcards stopped coming. Her best friend ghosted her. So when she and her mom moved to Southview she had mixed feelings on seeing Alec again.

I absolutely LOVED THIS STORY and I am begging Lynn Painter to please write a Book Two because one book of Alec and Dani isn’t enough.

4.5 ⭐️

I have been on a Lynn Painter kick recently and binging her books so imagine my surprise when I was actually approved for the ARC??

In a different life I would be an author just like her with the amount of Taylor Swift lyric references she puts into her books.

This was so cute I couldn’t put it down, the fake dating, the ice skating, the cutest grumpy grandpa and parents that actually seem to care. But really the icing on the cake for non toxic people are the friends because even when shit seemingly hit the fan, they stood by her and that was all she really wanted.

Lynn Painter is an “auto-buy” author for me for a reason and Fake Skating is no exception.

Adorable is the only way to describe this book. Alec and Dani are childhood best friends who spent 1 month of the summer attached at the hip, but miscommunication causes them to lose touch. When Dani moves to his hometown they find themselves setting up a fake dating ploy to show everyone Alec isn’t a trouble making, bad boy, hockey God. The characters were so cute, with such a fun story, I had a hard time putting this one down. Lynn Painters books always feel like a John Hughes movie to me, even though I’m reading it for the first time it has such a nostalgic feel to it. Kind of like watching your favorite rom com. Totally loved the book!! Thanks to Net Galley, the author, and Simon and Schuster for the ARC!!

Typically, I am a Lynn Painter stan. I love all of her other books, but I had a really hard time getting through this one. I might just be getting too old for YA, but the characters annoyed me a lot of the time. I didn't like the miscommunication and immaturity. The title and the cover are both really cute, but the story just didn't do it for me this time.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this ARC.

This was perfectly delightful and sweet. I loved the banter and I thought the dialogue sounded realistic. Some of the music references felt heavy handed and it didn’t make as much sense in the context of this book as it did in author books by this author. But overall such a fun read!

Fake Skating was a cute second chance romance about Dani and Alec who met as children but due to miscommunication fell out of touch. Dani moves back to town senior year of high school and they reconnect. Alec is a hockey star while Dani sets her sights on Harvard. I enjoyed both the FMC and MMC. I normally don’t care about hockey romance but I actually loved this one. I will be recommending this book to all my friends as a 5 star read.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! My teenager is a huge Lynn Painter fan so we read this together.

My daughter especially loved the slow burn romance angle and how Dani tried something new and ended up loving it. Both main characters were well developed and there’s a subplot following an accident a physical disability that resonates warmly (and a good example for teens).

As usual, great writing and plot development from Painter. My daughter and I don’t often overlap in books but this one was a winner.

Solid 4 ⭐️’s. Another great, easy, and fun read from Lynn Painter. Love her YA novels, and this one was up there with Better than the Movies. Thank you NetGalley for the e-ARC. Alec and Collin’s had great chemistry in this fake dating, second chance high school rom com. Perfect for fans of lighthearted romance with a side of ice skates and slow-burn tension.

Lynn Painter did it again! When I saw that she was writing a ya hockey romance, I got so excited. So when it went up on netgalley, I had to request a copy. I honestly wasn’t expecting to receive an ARC, so imagine my excitement when it showed up in my inbox!

This book was so sweet, the banter, the fake-dating, the sweet moments. Every bit of it screamed classic Lynn Painter and I loved it!

Please go preorder this book! It comes out in September and it is a must read!



Thank you, Netgalley, and Simon and Schuster Books for the early copy in exchange for an honest review!

This book was such a fun, feel-good read. The banter had me grinning, and the chemistry between the characters was spot on. It gave me total rom-com vibes in the best way. It was written for a YA audience, so definitely be aware of that. It was so cute, but Betting on You is my absolute favorite book of hers! Lynn Painter almost never misses, and this one’s definitely going on my favorites shelf. 4.5 stars rounded up!

Thank you to Simonteen for the arc! I don’t know anything about hockey (outside of books) but I do enjoy a book that includes hockey, ironic right? I had to read this because what a new era for Lynn Painter! Anyways, Dani is moving to the place she visited each summer which will now be called home in Minnesota. She’s navigating her parents divorce and trying to acclimate herself to a new school (yet again). Alec aka Zeus is the town’s hockey star. He feels the pressure but has the need to live up to the strong sense of responsibility he has built up in his head. The silver lining? Dani and Alec were childhood besties who did everything together. After getting caught in the locker room in an awkward position after a game, Dani and Alec decide to start fake dating to help both their situations. I always enjoy a childhood to lover and. I think that Dani and Alec’s newly rekindled relationship was genuine. The book did fall short for me at some points because it felt slow which is why I knocked it down a star. But as the plot continues on, I think that as teenagers these two handled the whole fake dating under pressure situation and made for a feel-good hockey romance story. I definitely think this book gives wintry, small town cozy, and obviously hockey vibes. So if you’re into any of that definitely read this book.