The Favorites ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A four star read!

Gorgeous cover. Perfect for this book.

I’ve been so excited to read this new release. Debuts don’t often garner this much buzz but this book is EVERYWHERE. A modern retelling of Wuthering Heights with Olympic ice dancers? Yes, please.

I love the structure of this novel. It’s equal parts first-person narrative and documentary-style interview. Very effective for giving the reader the view from the main character, and outside opinions, while allowing the author to jump across large swaths of time when needed.

This book is both maddening and delicious. Kat is a strong female protagonist that you really want to root for. But my god, she makes it hard. What I did love was that the author was as unapologetic about Kat as Kat was throughout the book. She did a great job of describing how the women in this book are ruthless and ambitious while being expected to act like perfect smiling ice princesses.

If you’re anything like me, it’s been a long time since you’ve read Wuthering Heights. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know anything about it to enjoy the book. It’s about Kat and Heath and their toxic relationship. They’re “in love”, I guess, but this is not relationship goals.

“We used to joke they were going to die in each other’s arms or kill each other with their bare hands. Nothing in between."

Y’all… that’s not healthy!

And it doesn’t get better. Therapy people! Use it!

Let’s get to the spoilers.

Spoilers!!!

We follow Kat and Heath and their ice dancing partnership through three Olympic cycles. They are intertwined with Garrett and Bella Lin, ice dancing twins coached by their famous champion mother Sheila Lin, who is also Kat’s idol.

First, Kat and Heath are partners. They have a fight when he overhears her talking about how he’s a mediocre skater and he stomps away like a child who doesn’t know how to handle human emotions (ahem, therapy). Garrett and Kat start skating together and nobody hears from Heath for three years until he shows back up as Bella’s partner. And wait for it… he’s suddenly really good.

There is no such thing as sportsmanship in this book. They are all straight-up mean to each other, except for Garrett who plays the role of the golden retriever.

In the first Olympic cycle, Kat gets injured at the National Championships and Heath skips his skate with Bella to go with her to the hospital. Is that romantic? I’m not sure. Bella is, rightly, furious. None of them go to the Olympics.

In the second Olympic cycle, Kat and Heath are skating together again and they are the favorites to win the gold. They go to the Olympics with the Lins (who are skating together again). Kat and Heath are in the lead going into the final skate, but right before they take the ice a story breaks exposing that for the three years Heath was missing, he was training with the Russians! Everyone, clutch your pearls!

But really, why is this bad? This is before the current Russian/Ukraine conflict. I’m under the impression that US skaters trained in Russia all the time. Anyway, Kat is furious about it for reasons that are not clear and they use their skate to take out their frustrations with each other. You know, like professionals (seriously guys, therapy). This causes them to slip down to third place. Then Heath sleeps with Bella because, um, not sure. Hate sex? Trying to get back at Kat?

In the third Olympic cycle, Sheila Lin has died and Kat and Heath are attempting a comeback, this time coached by Bella. (Reading this book you would think there are only 4 people in all of ice dancing. Maybe that’s accurate, I don’t know.) This time they make it to nationals and still don’t finish their skate because Bella is rushed to the hospital. She’s pregnant! With Heath’s baby! Not kidding. Somehow, they are still named to the Olympic team. This time they win the gold medal only to have it stripped because Heath tested positive for an unidentified substance. But he didn’t do it! He was sabotaged!

Ok, so the book goes a little off the rails at the end. But at that point, you’re committed to the ride. The epilogue tells us that they all end up coaching at Bella’s skating school. Heath and Kat are together and they’re all co-parenting Bella and Heath’s baby. Or they’re a thruple. Not clear. The End.