Fake Skating

Same author, same sharp banter — but swaps hockey for classic rom-com obsession and a will-they-won't-they next-door dynamic with higher emotional stakes.

If you loved the electric back-and-forth between Dani and Alec in Fake Skating, Better Than the Movies is the Lynn Painter title to read next. It follows Liz Buxbaum, a hopeless romantic who believes her life should mirror the rom-coms she adores, as she schemes to win back her dreamy ex — only to collide, constantly, with the infuriating boy next door. The banter is just as quick and the romantic tension just as satisfying, but the setting shifts from ice rinks to small-town summers, and the emotional core leans harder into grief and self-discovery. Readers searching for 'books like Fake Skating by Lynn Painter' or 'what to read after Fake Skating' will find this one scratches exactly the same itch while giving them a fresh cast and a new slow-burn to obsess over.

Fake-relationship pact at a family gathering, same slow-burn payoff — ideal for readers who want fake-dating stakes wrapped in warm found-family feeling.

Fans of Fake Skating who latched onto the fake-relationship premise and the way Dani and Alec's scheme quietly reshapes their real feelings will find a kindred story in The Summer of Broken Rules. Meredith enlists a boy she barely knows to be her fake boyfriend during her family's annual Vineyard reunion — a high-pressure social performance that, of course, gets very real, very fast. Like Fake Skating, the book earns its romance through specific, grounded details: family dynamics, competitive games, and moments of unexpected tenderness. The tone is equally warm without being saccharine. If you've been Googling 'YA fake dating books like Fake Skating' or 'if you liked Fake Skating try this,' The Summer of Broken Rules belongs at the top of your list.

Childhood-sweethearts-turned-complicated-teenagers energy with deeper emotional weight — for readers who want the bittersweet alongside the swoon.

Dani and Alec's history as childhood sweethearts is one of Fake Skating's richest veins, and If He Had Been with Me mines that same territory with a more melancholy touch. Autumn and Finn grew up side by side, drifted into different social orbits in high school, and spend the novel circling each other with the charged awareness of two people who know each other better than anyone else does. Where Fake Skating leans into comedy and banter, Nowlin's book leans into longing and quiet regret — making it a perfect companion read for Fake Skating fans who want to feel the full emotional spectrum of a love that almost got away. Readers asking 'what to read after Fake Skating by Lynn Painter' who also want something with more emotional heft will find this an ideal next step.

High-school social dynamics and a hidden inner life, with a found-community payoff that mirrors Fake Skating's emotional core — bigger on mental health depth.

Fake Skating works partly because Dani is performing a version of herself for the world while quietly figuring out who she actually is — and Every Last Word takes that interiority even further. Samantha lives behind a carefully curated popular-girl mask while managing OCD, until a secret poetry group cracks her open and shows her what real belonging feels like. The found-family warmth that readers love in Fake Skating is here in full force, and the high-school social-hierarchy backdrop will feel immediately familiar. The romance is slower and quieter, but no less compelling. For anyone searching 'books like Fake Skating with more emotional depth' or 'YA romance with found family,' Every Last Word delivers the community and the heart without the ice rink.