Ohhhhh y'all. I saw this first on @booksnblazers page - she was hyping it up pretty hard *and* the cover was oddly eye-catching. So, I looked more into it and was immediately sold after reading the blurb. I grew up watching the Olympics - winter and summer - as a massive family event. The best two weeks of sports. And in the winter, ice skating was alwayyyyyyyys a highlight for me and my mom. To be totally transparent, ice dancing was never our favorite, and we always laugh when the announcers talk about "twizzles" (I get that what they are doing is so impressive, but seriously, naming it twizzles is not doing the sport any favors). But watching the skaters and getting emotionally invested in their stories and performances and complaining about the judging and commenting on their outfits and music choices....it's a core memory for me, for sure. So, needless to say, I was absolutely going to read this. 

I have to shout out first, before anything else, the full cast narration of the audiobook. It was on point. Perfectly cast, a great choice stylistically for the format of the book and OMG JOHNNY WEIR! What an absolutely wonderful surprise! His position (along with Tara Lipinski) as the best skating commentators ever (like so fav that they now do some general Olympics commentary too, I believe), has been a highlight of recent Winter Olympics for my fam and as soon as I heard his voice on this audiobook I was beyond hype! Also, let me just say, talk about the perfect voice for the role. 

And now, on to the book itself. Ok y'all. This was so good. I was SAT for the tea from the very first page. Like, at every moment there was another drama and I was so hooked. I mean, the text really played up skating stereotypes, like romantic entanglements with partners, stuffy and condescending judges, underhanded attempts to take down competitors, a mixing of flamboyance and traditional gender roles that really opens the stage to lots of commentary on sexuality, and more. But I think, with the formatting of it being a documentary (a "tell all" from people who knew them about the career of a famous ice dancing pair, Katerina Shaw and Heath Rocha, along with their main American competition, Bella and Garrett Lin), that makes sense. You get a couple sound bites from each contributing voice and that becomes their whole persona in the piece, which is limiting, to be sure. And it was also fun to read, as a reader who has watched and commented on many of the same things as a fan. All in all, perhaps the drama was a bit blown out of proportion to real life, but I was living for it as entertainment.

Past that though, the actual character development, in the parts of the story that Kat told herself, provided some fantastic character development. Her voice, telling her own story in her own words, intertwined with the commentary gathered by those who knew her for the documentary, was paced and written so well. It melded truth with juicy gossip in a perfectly fascinating literary way. All four MCs, Kat and Heath and Bella and Garrett, were really nuanced. There was so much great commentary on how expectations (social and internal) can take a good thing and twist it...and how that happened for all four. Also, the myriad complicated ways their relationships with each other unfolded were a mix of toxic interdependence and vulnerable reliance and while it was almost operatic in its melodrama, it was also so realistic considering the circumstances. I really liked watching it develop both intellectually and in a "can't look away from the wreck" way. Honestly, the absolute flawed perfection of each of these characters is stunning.

Overall, oh my god YES to this novel. With shades of The Lightning Bottles and The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (and of course, the more popular, Daisy Jones and the Six), this documentary-ish format is turning into one of my favorite "fun" reading book styles. Especially when the topic, writing, and narration are as good as they were here. I am for real for real recommending this one!  

“The thing is, when pushing your limits is all you know, when it seems normal to you…it’s hard to remember you even have limits. Until you run right into them.”

“His love for me hadn’t been motivation enough to reach his full potential. His hatred, though? That made him capable of anything.”

“I didn’t want to be forgotten. I wanted to be remembered for the right reasons…”

“…but what was the point, if you had everything and enjoyed nothing?”