REVIEW: Fake Dating by Lynn Painter

In Fake Dating by Lynn Painter, Dani Collins is in the middle of her senior year in high school when she finally gets the news she’s been waiting for: after her parents’ brutal divorce, she and her mom are moving to Southview, Minnesota, where her mom grew up and where her best friend in the world, Alec Barczewski, lives. Well, her *former* best friend. Dani isn’t sure why Alec stopped sending postcards to her a few years ago. But she’s excited to see him again and see if they can rekindle their friendship. Color her shocked when the crazy good hockey player everyone is talking about, aka Zeus, turns out to be her former accident-prone, nonathletic bestie. Not a fan of sports or arrogant jocks, Dani isn’t impressed. Until she slowly gets to know Alec once again and they somehow end up fake dating to help each other out. Only things get all too real between them all too quickly. And Dani isn’t sure what or who to believe.

“I have a proposition for you. I will get you the hockey-manager job so you can have Harvard, if you agree to go along with this and maybe, like, let people think we’re kind of dating a little bit.”
“What?” Whatwhatwhat the hell? “You want me to pretend we’re dating?”
“I mean, it’d be low-key,” he said, looking offended by my reaction.

Alec tells himself he couldn’t care less that Dani is moving to Southview. Or that he might get to know her famous former pro-hockey player grandpa, Mick Boche, should he visit their house. He’s surprised at the changes in Dani, though. Gone is the feisty girl who never let him get away with anything. Now she always has her head in a textbook and is hyper focused on getting accepted into Harvard. On a trajectory for either college hockey or going pro, Alec can understand the pressure Dani is probably under. And if he can help out his former friend, he’s willing to try. Fake dating probably wasn’t his best idea. He can hardly keep his mind–or his eyes–off Dani on a good day. Holding her hand and sitting close together is pretty much torture. But as their fake relationship begins feeling way too real, their past gets brought up and begins to interfere with their present situation. It may break them both, but Alec is determined to either fix things for once and for all or to go their own way for good.

‘If I was being honest, the minute her lips touched mine, I forgot who I was, where I was, and who was fake dating who. I only knew I wanted more.’

Lynn Painter’s newest Young Adult rom-com was a delight in every sense of the word. FAKE SKATING had me falling for a hockey god, a Harvard hopeful, their terrific families, and a grumpy grandfather-slash-hockey legend who you’ll adore.

“We’ve made everything so fucking complicated since you moved back, but the simple truth is that all I’ve ever wanted is you–period.”

CW: View Spoiler »Anxiety, panic attacks, drug & alcohol use, toxic parent, bullying, fighting « Hide Spoiler

I can’t resist a Lynn Painter novel and oh wow was this a good one! FAKE SKATING might have been a Young Adult novel, but it had a mature feel to most of it. With the issues between the main characters’ struggles, their family sagas, and a whole lot of small-town hockey, I don’t know how readers can’t be anything but charmed. Told from both our heroine’s and hero’s POVs, I couldn’t get enough of their backstory and the way Dani and Alec meshed together so well as friends. But it was a long road for them to get back into each other’s good graces after nearly five years of no contact. The misunderstanding that drove them apart will probably anger readers once the whole truth comes out. Because while Alec and Dani certainly had a lack of communication at times, they didn’t cause the rift that separated them. I’ll let you read the surprising, frustrating details. But suffice to say things made a whole lot more sense to them when it all came out.

The fake dating was such a fun trope for a YA rom-com. The chemistry between Dani and Alec made it seem natural for them to start dating, especially where they’d been childhood besties. But that unknown reason why they ended up ghosting each other, why their postcards and letters started dwindling, added friction between Alec and Dani. I loved how Painter showed the glaring difference of Alec as an unathletic, clumsy kid who turned into a teenage hockey god on the ice. And how events at the many schools Dani went to–her father was a colonel in the Air Force, so they moved every two years or so–dimmed her personality down from a sassy daredevil to a studious, anxious young woman bent on being accepted to Harvard. It was complicated between them. It was raw and honest. But it was so satisfying to watch Dani and Alec find their way back into each other’s lives as they were always meant to be. Sigh.

I do also have to mention that as much fun as I had with all of the secondary cast, Grandpa Mick stole the show. He. Was. Awesome. Okay, so he was grumpy and a man of few words. But when he loved and cared for someone? They couldn’t have a better person on their side. It seems like every scene he was in became my favorite–particularly one toward the end of the book set in the hospital. Sweet, funny, and heart meltingly wonderful. Just like the rest of the story.

QOTD: Did you have any extracurricular activities when you were in school?

Book Info:

Publication: Published: September 30th, 2025 | Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers |

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Better Than the Movies Lynn Painter comes a heartfelt and banter-filled rom-com about childhood sweethearts whose icy reunion in their hockey-loving hometown unexpectedly thaws when they fake a romantic relationship.

Growing up, Dani couldn’t help but follow around the adorable son of her mom’s best friend. Funny, kind of nerdy, and a little soft, Alec was always down to hang with Dani when they were little. From play dates on the playground to sneaking into movie theaters, Dani and Alec were inseparable. Until Dani moved away. Alec promised they’d stay in touch—except, they didn’t.

Flash forward and Dani is back in Minnesota for her senior year, she and her mom living with her grandfather. Dealing with the fallout of her parents’ devastating divorce, Dani wouldn’t mind a nerd-out with the cozy and comforting Alec (and maybe a chance to confront him on his MIA status for all these years). But teenage Alec is nothing like the kid Dani remembers. He’s a hockey star in a town where hockey players are worshiped as gods. Dani’s place as his shadow has been taken up by drooling female fans…and he loves it.

Dani is resolved to ice out her former best friend until an unlikely series of events brings them together—and forces them to fake being a couple. Once forced together, the former childhood sweethearts begin to reconnect, unearth complicated family secrets, and face their true feelings towards each other…including the real reason Alec has been pushing Dani away all these years.