Book Review: The Favorites by Layne Fargo
This book was…not my favorite (I’m sorry, I had to!). The Favorites by Layne Fargo held alot of promise on my shelf; it’s about a professional ice skating couple and their bumpy journey to become Olympic champions. I’ve never read a book about this sport, so I was excited to learn more about it. It also centers on a spicy romance, so it felt like there would be a nice balance of drama mixed in with their pursuit of excellence. The writing itself was great, but simply put, it was too damn long. This could have been the perfect 250 page novel, but instead, the reader was dragged through a roller coaster of almost 450 pages without much substance to justify the page count. However this is a bestselling book, so many other people clearly didn’t mind the length and I could just be (increasingly) grumpy about long-winded writing. Read on and decide for yourself!
Plot Summary
We meet Katarina Shaw and Heath Rocha as teens, already desperately in love and clinging to each other in their turbulent personal lives. Kat lives alone with her abusive older brother Lee, who drinks away their inheritance after their parents died. Heath is caught up in the foster care system, often spending nights alone in the stables outside Kat’s house, as Lee won’t allow him in the house. Together they skate at the local rink, finding solace on the ice and undeniably talented as a skating pair. From here they begin to enter progressively bigger competitions until they are invited to train at the famous Lin Ice Academy in Los Angeles, run by Olympic champion and Kat’s idol, Sheila Lin. From there, their stardom is born. The dramatic story of their rise to fame is told through two different avenues. First, there is dialogue from a ‘tell-all’ documentary where friends, skating judges, and even fellow skaters are interviewed, narrating the duo’s progressive climb to infamy, along with their often entertaining takes on the drama that unfolds between them. Interspersed among these interviews is the first-person perspective from Katarina herself, so we learn the truth about the Shaw and Rocha story and what was truly going on amongst the proliferation of outsider theories.
My Thoughts
Let’s start with what was well done about this book, as there are many things that I quite enjoyed. The plotting moved along at a nice clip before I felt the book had gotten too long; I was engaged, and there was a well balanced mix of ‘documentary tell-all’ of nasty and bitter comments along with Kat and Heath’s grueling training regiment that was very entertaining. Fargo knows to not get bogged down by the boring bits; when they compete, we aren’t overly focused on the technical aspects of their performances, instead we learn about how Kat is feeling, and the audience reaction, so basically all the fun stuff.
This book has been compared to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books, especially Daisy Jones & The Six, which is totally accurate. Like Reid, Fargo has written incredibly strong female protagonists, set on a specific goal and hellbent on reaching it. It’s very similar to Reid’s Carrie Soto is Back in many ways. And this is what initially drew me into the story – Kat’s relentless drive for Olympic gold is foreign for me to read about (I give up easily!), but following along with her on the journey is fun too; the romance, the international competitions, the athlete’s interpersonal conflict all makes for an engaging read. But after hundreds of pages of Kat and Heath’s breaking up and getting back together I became frustrated by the unnecessary cliffhangers, eventually losing interest. Strangely, the book ended up taking a dark turn in the last 50ish pages, turning into a pseudo-thriller that felt out of place with the narrative that came before it. If this had happened earlier in the book I may have remained interested, but it was too late for me at that point, I was lost.
As I started writing this review, I noticed the publisher page had an announcement that the updated version now has some bonus content, including two never-before published chapters – my god, how could this book get any longer??? It held so much promise at the beginning, and I loved falling into fame with Kat and Heath, but ultimately the plot just couldn’t sustain my interest for the duration of the word count. The conflict was far too shallow to warrant such a length, which unfortunately soured my entire experience of reading it.
