Inspiration behind writing Fake Skating
Painter decided to write Fake Skating after realizing there were few young adult hockey rom-coms, leading her to visit cousins in Minnesota and observe high school practices for research.
Reviewed
Read Time
8 min read
Age & reading levelAges 14+ · Young adult
Reader rating
4.5 · 5,874 Amazon ratings
reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks scoreShare This Review
Our review
Fake Skating
Fake Skating by Lynn Painter Review: A Banter-Filled YA Hockey Rom-Com
by Lynn Painter
Fake Skating is a young adult romance novel by Lynn Painter, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on September 30, 2025, that pairs a fake-dating premise with a hockey-loving Minnesota setting, childhood-sweetheart tension, and themes of found family — earning a number one spot on the New York Times Young Adult Hardcover Best Seller list for fifteen of its first twenty-eight weeks on the chart.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers aged 14 and up who love the childhood-sweethearts and fake-dating tropes in combination, want a fast, warm YA romantic comedy with genuine sports-community atmosphere, and don't mind a slow-burn misunderstanding driving the central tension.
Worth it if
You're a fan of Lynn Painter's earlier YA voice — breezy dialogue, snappy pacing, and two leads whose chemistry anchors everything — and you can tolerate a deliberately prolonged misunderstanding as part of the pleasurably frustrating fake-dating formula.
Skip if
You find "forced misunderstanding" plots where a single honest conversation would resolve everything more irritating than fun, or you're easily pulled out of a story by dense pop-culture-reference humour.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews calls it "a compelling romance inhabited by complex and appealing characters," awarding it a starred "Get It" verdict, while Common Sense Media praises the banter and chemistry as "on point" and credits Painter's "breezy dialogue and snapping pacing," though it also flags the central misunderstanding as artificially stretched across the full novel. All About Romance ranks it among the reviewer's favourite Lynn Painter YA titles, and The Moving Words describes it as "a charming, emotionally resonant YA romance that balances humor and heart with skill."
“Breezy dialogue and snapping pacing keep readers engaged; banter and chemistry between Dani and Alec are on point — another binge-worthy delight.”
— Common Sense Media4.5from 5,874 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
Ask LuvemBooks
Was this helpful?
Fake Skating is a YA romance by Lynn Painter that pairs high school senior Dani Collins with her childhood sweetheart Alec Barczewski in a fake-dating arrangement set against the lived-in hockey culture of Southview, Minneapolis. Praised by Common Sense Media for its "breezy dialogue and snapping pacing," and a Goodreads Choice Award winner for Best Young Adult Fiction, it's a natural pick for fans of the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope who want both external and internal stakes to their romance. The key caveat: a central misunderstanding between Dani and Alec is deliberately stretched across the full novel, resolving only as a late aside rather than through genuine character confrontation — a device that will delight some readers and frustrate others.
- Is it worth reading?
- For fans of YA romantic comedies who enjoy the fake-dating and childhood-sweethearts tropes in combination, Fake Skating delivers on its core promise: sharp banter, satisfying fake-to-real romance, and a Minnesota hockey community that feels genuinely lived-in. Common Sense Media calls it "another binge-worthy delight" and specifically credits Painter's "breezy dialogue and snapping pacing." The main reservation is structural — the core misunderstanding between Dani and Alec, which a single direct conversation could resolve, is stretched across the entire book and surfaces only as a late aside rather than through genuine confrontation, which will test the patience of readers who prefer tension driven by circumstance rather than withheld information.
- Similar books
- Readers who connect with Fake Skating's childhood-sweethearts-to-fake-dating romance will find a natural companion in Painter's own Better Than the Movies, which shares her signature warm, fast-moving tone and a romance built on long-established emotional history. The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther and If He Had Been with Me by Laura Nowlin both explore the tension of reconnecting with someone from your past within a charged, community-driven setting. Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone and We Were Liars by E. Lockhart round out the list for readers drawn to YA stories that layer emotional complexity beneath a compulsively readable surface.
- Who should read this?
- Fake Skating is designed most directly for fans of YA romantic comedies who enjoy the fake-dating and childhood-sweethearts tropes used in combination — particularly readers who want both external stakes (Harvard, NHL scouts) and internal ones (old hurt, incomplete histories) to drive the romance. Readers drawn to sports as a community and emotional setting rather than a competition plot will find the hockey world here serves those ends, consistent with Painter's own stated intent. Those who responded to the tone of Painter's earlier YA titles — warm, fast-moving, and character-chemistry-first — will find Fake Skating firmly in that register.
- What age is it for?
- Best for ages 14 and up. The novel targets high school readers in grades 9–12, and Painter has described it as designed for ages 16 and up, though Common Sense Media places its content threshold at 14 and older. The reading level and thematic complexity — divorce, family secrets, social-media reputation, and the emotional weight of childhood estrangement — suit confident teen readers in that range.
- About Lynn Painter
- Lynn Painter is an American contemporary romance author.
- Tell me about the adaptation
- A film adaptation of Fake Skating by Sony Pictures was announced in 2026. No further details about casting, release date, or production timeline are confirmed in available sources at this time.
- How does it compare to Better Than the Movies?
- Both Fake Skating and Better Than the Movies operate in the same register — warm, fast-moving YA romantic comedies built around two characters whose connection is the novel's most compelling element, with Painter's signature breezy dialogue at the center. Where Better Than the Movies uses film culture as its emotional backdrop, Fake Skating grounds its world in the hockey community of Southview, Minneapolis, giving it a more sports-and-found-family-oriented texture. Readers who responded to the tone and chemistry of Better Than the Movies will find Fake Skating a natural next read, though the deliberate prolonging of the central misunderstanding is a structural choice more pronounced here.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
What age is it for?
About Lynn Painter
Tell me about the adaptation
How does it compare to Better Than the Movies?
Summarize this book
Fake Skating follows high school senior Dani Collins, who relocates to Southview, Minneapolis, after her parents' divorce and moves in with her grandfather — a prolific former ice hockey player. She reunites with Alec Barczewski, her childhood sweetheart and now the star of the high school hockey team, and the two enter a purely transactional fake relationship: Dani needs a team manager position to strengthen her Harvard waitlist application, while Alec needs the image of a serious, academically accomplished girlfriend to rehabilitate his reputation with NHL scouts after a social-media incident. As their arrangement deepens into something real, the novel expands into found-family territory, complicated family secrets, and the question of where each character truly belongs.
Follow up
How big a role does hockey play?
What makes the fake-dating premise work?
Is found family a big part of the story?
Synthesized from verified book data & published reviews · How we review
Ask LuvemBooks
What would you like to know about Fake Skating?
Answers come from our editorial notes on this book. If we haven't covered something, we'll say so.
Readers often ask
Our Review
We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.
Fake Skating delivers exactly what its premise promises — sharp banter, a satisfying fake-to-real romance, and a Minnesota hockey community that feels lived-in — but a central misunderstanding stretched thin across the full novel keeps it from being as tight as its best moments.
What the Novel Is and What It Contains
Fake Skating is a young adult romance novel by Lynn Painter, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on September 30, 2025. The story follows high school senior Dani Collins, who relocates to Southview, Minneapolis, with her mother after her parents' divorce, moving in with her grandfather — a prolific former ice hockey player.
There, Dani reunites with Alec Barczewski, her childhood sweetheart, who has since become the star of the high school hockey team. Both carry grievances from a years-long silence: Dani wonders why Alec stopped contacting her; Alec believes Dani was the one who broke things off.
Their arrangement is purely transactional at first — Dani gets a team manager position to strengthen her Harvard waitlist application, while Alec gets the optics of a serious, academically accomplished girlfriend to rehabilitate his image with NHL scouts after a social-media incident. As they spend time together, the fake relationship gives way to something real, and the novel expands into territory involving found family, complicated family secrets, and the question of where each character belongs.
Origins, Context, and Place in Painter's Career
According to Wikipedia, Painter conceived Fake Skating after noticing a gap in hockey-centered romantic comedies set in high school. To ground the novel's setting, she traveled from her hometown of Omaha to Minnesota to observe the ice hockey culture firsthand.
That research investment shows in how the hockey world functions in the narrative: it provides community infrastructure and emotional stakes rather than serving as mere backdrop. The novel sits within an already successful body of work — Painter is also the author of Better Than the Movies, Nothing Like the Movies, The Do-Over, and several other titles.
School Library Journal is quoted in publisher materials describing Fake Skating as a "feel-good rom-com," and the novel went on to win a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. A film adaptation by Sony Pictures was announced in 2026.
Strengths: Chemistry, Pacing, and the World Around the Ice
Common Sense Media singles out the banter and chemistry between Dani and Alec as "on point," calling the novel "another binge-worthy delight" and crediting Painter's "breezy dialogue and snapping pacing" for keeping readers engaged through to the end. Beyond the central romance, the review notes that the hockey action feels authentic without crowding out the emotional story, and that the sense of community and familial bonds is handled well.
These are the elements Painter herself has described as increasingly central to the book as she wrote it — the found-family dimension and the characters' search for belonging expanded organically as the hockey culture of the setting deepened. Publishers Weekly, as summarized in Wikipedia's reception overview, praised Dani and Alec's chemistry and described the novel's world as tangibly rendered.
For readers who respond to the childhood-friends-to-lovers trope and the specific warmth of small-town sports community, those ingredients are the book's clearest strengths.
A Genuine Limitation: The Sustained Misunderstanding
The novel's most consistent criticism points to a structural choice rather than a failure of voice. Common Sense Media notes that the core misunderstanding between Dani and Alec — one that a single direct conversation could resolve — is deliberately prolonged across the entire book.
The review describes this as a conflict that "is stretched out for the entire book," and observes that the characters avoid processing it directly, with the real explanation surfacing only late in the story. Combined with what Common Sense Media describes as a reliance on frequent pop culture references, these elements can create friction for readers who prefer their romantic tension to arise from circumstance rather than withheld information.
The "forced misunderstanding" device is a familiar one in the fake-dating subgenre, and whether it reads as pleasurably frustrating or genuinely annoying will depend on the reader's tolerance for it.
Who This Book Is For
Fake Skating is designed for readers aged sixteen and up, with a grade-level target of 9–12, though Common Sense Media places its content threshold at fourteen and older. It will appeal most directly to fans of YA romantic comedies who enjoy the fake-dating and childhood-sweethearts tropes in combination — a pairing that Painter uses to give the romance both external stakes (Harvard, the NHL scouts) and internal ones (old hurt, incomplete histories).
Readers drawn to sports as a community setting rather than a competition plot will find the hockey world here serves emotional rather than athletic ends, consistent with Painter's own stated intent. Those who read Painter's earlier YA titles and responded to their tone will find Fake Skating firmly in that register — warm, fast-moving, and built around two characters whose connection the record consistently describes as the novel's most compelling element.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
commonsensemedia.org
- Further reading
- 2
Lynn Painter, LuvemBooks
- 3
en.wikipedia.org
- 4
allaboutromance.com
- 5
- 6
pinereadsreview.com
- 7
themovingwords.com
- 8
simonandschuster.com
- 9
- 10
Kirkus Reviews
Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Ages 14+
Reading level
Young adult
Tropes
fake datingfriends to lovers
From how readers describe it, not our own reading.
3 content notes · who it suits
Content to know about
parental divorce
family secrets
social-media reputation incident
Best for: Ages 14 and up — thematic complexity around divorce, family secrets, and social-media reputation suits readers at a high school reading level; Common Sense Media sets the content threshold at 14+.
Skip if you find prolonged misunderstandings and withheld-information tension more frustrating than pleasurably dramatic in your romantic fiction.
Lynn Painter on Fake Skating
Lynn Painter discusses 'Better Than the Movies' and 'Fake Skating' in conversation with author Ali Hazelwood.
Uploaded by Barnes & Noble, 2026 · Watch on YouTube ·
From our readers
Reader reviews
Be one of the first readers to answer.
Read it? Was it right for you?
Books like Fake Skating
Curated picks for readers who enjoyed Fake Skating, with our reasoning for each match.
If you liked Fake Skating
