The Favorites by Layne Fargo is a 448 page standalone novel published by Random House in 2025.

Genre:

Contemporary Fiction, Retelling

Opening Line:

Today is the tenth anniversary of the worst day of my life.

My Thoughts:

Guys, I think I already read one of my top ten books of 2025.

When I was strong and self-assured, people recoiled from me. They told me I was too competitive, too ambitious, too much. But when I was brought low, bruised and bleeding, a princess in need of rescue instead of a conquering queen, they loved me.

This book is a reimagining of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with modern competitive ice dancers, and I was absolutely addicted to it! I did enjoy Wuthering Heights, although it boggles my mind that people call it a romance. I consider it a pure revenge story, and for whatever reason, I really seem to dig the revenge stories (that one, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Stars my Destination.) Although The Favorites has revenge, it is definitely more of a love story, albeit one that is a bit toxic at times.

At first I thought the comp of this book to the classic just meant it was inspired by it and had many of the same themes, but it’s more than that. Our characters are Heath Rocha (Heathcliff), Katarina Shaw (Catherine Earnshaw), Lee Shaw (Hindley Earnshaw), Isabella Lin (Isabella Linton), and Garret Lin (Edgar Linton). There are similarities to the story arc, but it is definitely not an exact copy in a new setting.

Kat has long idolized Olympic gold medalist Sheila Lin, and wishes fervently to follow in her footsteps to become a champion ice dancer. Because this is what she wants, Heath learns to be her ice dance partner. The two have been skating together since children, and in love with each other almost as long. The rub is that Kat is the most important thing in the world to Heath, and while Kat loves Heath like crazy, becoming champion is the most important thing to her.

They wind up presented with the amazing opportunity to train with Sheila Lin herself at Lin Academy. There they work alongside Sheila’s twin children, Garrett and Bella. The Lins are wealthy and entitled, and Heath can’t say he loves the way Kat changes when she’s around them and training at such a prestigious facility.

I really liked the best frenemy situation between Kat and Bella. They become friends, but both are incredibly ambitious and have the same goal, so they use one another as motivation to always push to improve and best the other. Even as competitors, the way they understand one another is a strong glue binding them.

“Any bitch can get married, but-“
“It takes a special bitch to be national champion?”
“Exactly.”

Interspersed between some chapters are transcripts from the documentary that commemorates the ten year anniversary of what Kat calls the worst day of her life, while the rest of the book is written in Kat’s POV, first person past tense. This style was great, it added a lot.

Kat and Heath realize the public respond more to their romance story as skate partners than they do to their performances as elite athletes, and decide to play it up for the press. Some in the industry consider them something of a scandal. Through it all, Heath’s number one goal in life is to be enough for the woman he loves, while Kat doesn’t take her eyes off the prize of taking home the Olympic gold. Unsurprisingly, some of the other hopefuls don’t shy away from trying to sabotage rival teams.

The characters in this book just all felt so real to me, multilayered, not 100% good or bad throughout. I loved taking this wild ride with them.

And as a side note, I also really enjoy the playlist the author put together for this book. Usually I avoid those, because although authors say it’s music that inspired them while writing, I can like the book and yet still not share their taste in music. In this case I took a look at the playlist because so many songs are mentioned in the book as the pieces the ice dancers are performing to. And it turns out this extra long playlist has many, many songs I am loving and would never have otherwise found on my own.

All the stars for this book, which had a 41 year old woman who doesn’t dance and hates being the center of attention asking, “Is it too late for me to start training in ice dance?” It did seem a bit overlong, but as I wanted to live in its pages forever, that didn’t bother me. I would love to see this as a movie some day!

People seem to have a strong preference for either the US or UK version of the book cover. How do you feel about them?