Fake Skating by Lynn Painter Review: A Charming, Bestselling YA Hockey Romance

Fake Skating is a fully realized, commercially dominant YA romance that earns its record-breaking chart run through sharp banter, a well-drawn hockey community, and emotional stakes that go deeper than its premise suggests.

Following her parents' divorce, high school senior Dani Collins relocates with her mother to Southview, Minneapolis, moving in with her grandfather — a prolific former ice hockey player — in the community where she spent summers as a child. There she reconnects with Alec Barczewski, once her childhood sweetheart, now the star of the high school hockey team. The two carry a mutual, unresolved misunderstanding: Dani wonders why Alec stopped contacting her; Alec believes Dani broke his heart. Their reunion is further complicated when a photo of Alec with a bong surfaces on social media, threatening his standing with NHL scouts, and Dani finds herself on Harvard's waitlist needing a meaningful extracurricular. The solution: a fake romantic relationship. Alec gains the image boost of a scholarly girlfriend with hockey-family credentials; Dani gains access to a team manager position that draws Harvard's attention. As they perform their arrangement, the old connection reasserts itself. According to Wikipedia, Painter conceived the novel after noticing a scarcity of hockey-centered romantic comedies set in high school, and traveled to Minnesota to research the sport's community culture firsthand.

Few YA romances reach the commercial and critical heights Fake Skating has achieved. As recorded by Wikipedia, the novel spent twenty-eight weeks on the New York Times Young Adult Hardcover Best Seller list — topping it for fifteen of those weeks — and won a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Young Adult Fiction. A film adaptation by Sony Pictures was announced in 2026. Within Painter's own catalog, Pine Reads Review notes that her YA work has shown clear progression over time, and this novel is positioned as a confident expression of the form she has developed. Its success also fills a recognized gap: hockey culture, so central to certain American and Canadian communities, had been largely absent from high school romantic comedy — a niche Fake Skating occupies with apparent authority.

Publishers Weekly, cited by Wikipedia, praised the chemistry between Dani and Alec. Common Sense Media echoes that assessment directly, calling the banter and chemistry between the leads "on point" and describing the novel as "another binge-worthy delight." Common Sense Media also notes that hockey action is present and credible without overwhelming the romantic plot, and that the book's handling of community bonds and found-family dynamics is "well-handled." Painter's research into Minnesota's hockey culture translates into a setting that functions as more than backdrop — according to Wikipedia, as she developed the novel, its thematic center shifted from the fake-dating premise toward found family and the search for belonging. That thematic depth, layered beneath an accessible rom-com structure, gives the book more to offer than its genre trappings alone.

The critical consensus surfaces a consistent and specific structural problem. Common Sense Media identifies the central misunderstanding between Dani and Alec — one that could be resolved by a single direct conversation — as a conflict deliberately stretched across the full length of the book. The review goes further, noting that the characters avoid processing their misunderstanding throughout, allowing it to emerge only as a late-story aside rather than through genuine confrontation. Common Sense Media also flags the novel's density of pop culture references as a recurring irritant that detracts from the reading experience. These are craft-level critiques, not matters of taste: readers who find contrived-miscommunication plots frustrating will encounter that device at full deployment here, and those who find dated or excessive pop culture callbacks distracting may find them accumulate. Readers who prefer conflict resolved through direct character agency may find the pacing of the emotional resolution unsatisfying.

Fake Skating is designed for readers who enjoy high-banter, trope-forward YA romance with genuine emotional underpinning. Simon & Schuster assigns it a reading age of 16 and up, and it covers themes of academic pressure, family disruption through divorce, community identity, and the cost of personal ambition alongside its romantic throughline. Common Sense Media rates it appropriate from age 14, noting swearing as a content element. Fans of Painter's previous YA work will find the voice and rhythm familiar; readers new to her will find this an accessible entry point. The novel's immense commercial performance — a number one New York Times bestseller with twenty-eight weeks on the list and a Goodreads award — signals that its blend of classic fake-dating structure, hockey-world atmosphere, and found-family warmth has connected broadly with its intended audience.