Book Review: Fake Skating

It’s no secret that I love Lynn Painter’s books. I love her YA books and her adult books. They are always so fun and the banter is always perfect. Her latest YA is Fake Skating and I loved it.

Fake Skating follows Daniella “Dani” Collins and Alec Barczewski. Their mothers are best friends and Dani and her mom used to spend a month every summer in her Minnesota hometown visiting. That meant Dani and Alec were best friends as kids and spent all their time together in the summers. During the rest of the year Dani and her mom lived in air force bases around the world with Dani’s dad – a colonel. When they weren’t together, Dani and Alec would send each other postcards with their secret code language.

But a few years ago, Dani’s dad and grandpa got into an argument and since then Dani and her mom haven’t been back to visit. Not only that, but she and Alec suddenly stopped talking and sending each other postcards too. Now, Dani’s parents are getting divorced and she and her mom are moving back to Minnesota from Germany. Dani and Alec are seniors in high school now and Alec isn’t the clumsy kid who was shorter than her anymore. He’s a big, good looking, hockey star…and he wants nothing to do with her.

Dani and Alec are content trying to avoid each other even though they go to the same school and their moms are besties. But when Alec catches Dani in a vulnerable moment and hugs her to console her, his hockey coach thinks they are dating and that the quiet, smart, new girl would be good for his reputation with all the sports reporters and college and NHL scouts that are always watching him. Now they have to fake date to help Alec with his hockey future and to help Dani make some new friends and gain a social circle. Will they figure out what went wrong in their friendship all those years ago? Can they go back to the way things were before when they were best friends? And if they can, is being friends enough?

I loved the banter and chemistry between Dani and Alec. Their journey to rediscovering each other was so fun to follow. I loved them together so much. And Alec’s comment about his cousin who makes playlists for everything has to be a Liz Buxbaum reference (Better than the Movies)! I adored this book.

Read this if you want a YA romcom with the friends to enemies to lovers and second chance romance tropes. And hockey romance too!

*This post contains affiliate links.*