Review: "The Favorites" by Layne Fargo

The Favorites by Layne Fargo
Published January 2024 via Random House
★★★★

Everyone thinks Heath Rocha was my first love. He wasn't. My first love was figure skating. (loc. 301*)

For Katarina, ice dancing was a lifeline—it's an escape from her dilapidated family home and from her brother's abuse. It's the possibility of a dream. For Heath, Katarina was a lifeline—the only person who believes in her. But it could never be quite that simple, and for everything that went right...well, there's a reason there's a documentary being made about them. And there's a reason or two Katarina is not participating.

I tend to forget the entire description of a book between deciding to read it and actually picking it up, so in this case all I remembered was that it was about ice skating—but almost as soon as I started reading, it became obvious (I mean, the names alone, but also) that this was a Wuthering Heights retelling, so I put my reading on pause for a minute to go do a reread. The Favorites is heavily inspired by Wuthering Heights, but it's not a straight retelling; in my experience, retellings are at their best when they don't try to hew too closely to the original, and this is no exception. The themes are still there, but expect a lot fewer women dying in or around childbirth and (mercifully) a lot fewer suicide threats. Also, there are distinct shades of the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan rivalry—again, this is not at all a retelling of that piece of history, but there's at least one direct reference to them, and it's hard not to see certain parallels. (Everyone loves a good underdog/golden girl story.)

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 a rescue instead of a conquering queen, they loved me. (loc. 3665)

The structure is one of my favorite things about the book: script-style dialogue from the documentary, then Katarina's telling of the events as they happened—the side that the documentarians don't, can't know—and so on and so forth.

ELLIS DEAN: Oh, the rivalry was delicious. I even made T-shirts: Team Katarina or Team Bella. The Bella ones sold the most, but I think some Twilight fans might've skewed the results. (loc. 4484)

It keeps the story happening more or less chronologically, brings in a bit of time-and-place feel, gives us a small window into what happened with some of the characters...but keeps the big reveals where they belong. (And my gosh, this is not a story short on drama: certain events about halfway through could have been the climax of the entire book, and instead they're just a teaser of sorts for what comes later.) And I love that Katarina knows that love was not enough for her, and for different reasons it would never be enough for Heath:

Heath had a bottomless pit inside him too, but it had nothing to do with ambition. No matter how much love I gave him, it would never be enough. He wanted to be everything to me, the way I was everything to him.

And I would always want more. (loc. 1810)

In some ways their relationship is a pretty major departure from the inspiration; Katarina Shaw might put skating first, but she does put Heath Rocha second most of the time; Cathy Shaw, meanwhile, puts herself first and Heathcliff a distant ways down the list. Neither of these outcomes, of course, satisfies anyone involved—but my gosh it makes for something compulsively readable. The Favorites is not a short book, and nor is it a particularly fast read, but it's pretty well gripping. Recommended for readers who enjoy skating competitions as either competitors or spectators, for those who enjoy Brontë retellings (and general grimness), and of anyone who likes a bit of messy every now and then.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.