67 pages • 2 hours read
Layne FargoThe Favorites
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2025A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The Hopefuls”
Prologue Summary: “The Favorites: The Shaw and Rocha Story”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, emotional abuse, and physical abuse.
Katarina “Kat” Shaw reflects on how people worldwide are preparing to watch a documentary about the worst day of her life, 10 years ago. She doesn’t care about the negative labels that she has accrued over the years and resolves to tell her story on her own terms.
A documentary introduces the ice-dancing team of Kat and Heath Rocha, asserting that they went from obsession, to scandal, to tragedy. People close to the couple are set to talk about the events leading up to “that fateful Olympic final” (5).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary
As 16-year-olds, Kat and Heath carve their names into the wooden headboard of Kat’s bed a few days before they are set to leave for their first US Figure Skating Championships in Cleveland, Ohio.
In the documentary, Nicole Bradford, Kat and Heath’s coach, discusses how Kat set her mind on becoming a famous ice dancer like Sheila Lin when she was just four years old. Ellis Dean, a former ice dancer now in his forties, discusses the paucity of men in the sport.
