Fake Skating Summary, Characters and Themes
Fake Skating by Lynn Painter is a contemporary YA romance about two teens whose shared past refuses to stay buried. After years of silence, former childhood best friends Dani Collins and Alec Barczewski find themselves thrown back into each other’s lives in a town that worships hockey and thrives on tradition.
Both carry memories, misunderstandings, and unspoken feelings that shaped their separation. As they face school pressures, family fractures, and the shadows of their history, they’re forced to navigate a complicated blend of resentment, attraction, loyalty, and fear. What begins as avoidance slowly shifts into a journey toward honesty, healing, and rediscovering each other.
Summary
Dani Collins returns to Southview after her parents’ divorce, moving with her mother into her grandfather Mick’s house despite years of strained family history. She once spent her summers in this town, and much of her happiest childhood moments came from the time she spent with Alec Barczewski, her best friend who became something more during their final summer together.
Their friendship ended abruptly after a confusing first kiss and a sudden silence she never understood. Now, as a senior starting over yet again, she is anxious about facing him.
Alec learns Dani is back when his mother breaks the news. The shock unsettles him because he has never truly moved on from what happened between them.
He remembers their last summer vividly: the unexpected kiss in an abandoned shed and the painful distance that followed. Believing Dani chose to walk away from him without explanation, he carries resentment beneath his carefully controlled exterior.
Now a standout hockey player known as “Zeus,” with college scouts watching and a family depending on his success, he wants no complications—least of all from someone who once hurt him.
Dani begins school determined to focus on her goal of getting into Harvard after being deferred. She tries to stay unnoticed, but Southview revolves around hockey, and her grandfather is a local legend.
She meets Cassie, her student guide, and soon realizes two players—Richie and Vinny—already know who she is because Alec mentioned her at a party. Dani insists it has to be a mistake, unaware that Alec is the “Zeus” everyone keeps talking about.
When they finally collide in the hallway, Alec recognizes her immediately but covers his reaction by brushing her off in front of his teammates, leaving Dani hurt and confused.
As Dani faces her overwhelming classes and her anxiety, Alec struggles to maintain focus during games. A leaked photo from a party—showing him holding a bong—creates a crisis for his hockey future.
Coaches pressure him to clean up his image and remind him that any mistake could cost him everything. His mother urges him to be kind to Dani, revealing details about her anxiety that he never knew.
In public speaking class, Dani nearly has a panic attack during her introduction. Alec steps in unexpectedly, volunteering to speak first so she can recover.
The gesture surprises them both. When she later musters the courage to give her own speech, it becomes a personal victory.
At lunch, Alec and his friends join Dani in the library, partly out of curiosity and partly because the boys are starstruck by her grandfather. Dani learns the hockey team needs a new co-manager.
Cassie and the others push her to take the position so she can strengthen her Harvard resume. Alec objects, not wanting her entangled in his world, but the group insists that as captain he can help her get approval.
Against his wishes, Dani tours the rink with Cassie and experiences the role firsthand. Seeing Alec dominate the ice with a level of talent and discipline she never recognized, she feels something old and familiar stir inside her.
Dani waits alone in the arena after practice, planning to ask Alec for help in becoming co-manager. The moment is derailed when her father calls from overseas with news that he may transfer closer to her.
For once he asks what she wants, and her hopeful answer leaves her emotionally raw.
As Dani and Alec slowly start interacting again, small signs of their past connection resurface. Their banter returns, along with the strange comfort they once shared.
After a difficult conversation with Mick about Alec’s shoulder injury, Dani texts Alec with concern, and their brief exchange softens him. Their tension heightens when he picks her up on game day, the air thick with unspoken memories.
The hockey community draws Dani deeper in. At the PNA lodge after a win, teammates tease Alec about Dani being his good-luck charm.
They pressure him into a dare that forces him to kiss her in view of Mick. What starts as a fake moment intensifies quickly, leaving them shaken.
Mick pulls them apart, but neither can ignore the spark that has reignited.
A fake-dating plan emerges to help Alec’s public image, especially after the scandal. Their staged outings feel natural, even too natural, blurring the line between pretend and real.
During a trip to the mall, Dani helps him with his injured shoulder in a quiet family room, and the closeness nearly pushes them across another boundary they aren’t ready to acknowledge.
But trouble surfaces when Benji Worthington, the wealthy neighbor who has resurfaced in Dani’s life, becomes a threat. Alec punches him while trying to defend Dani, and Benji retaliates by threatening to press charges that could end Alec’s college prospects.
The only way he’ll stay quiet is if Dani breaks up with Alec. Horrified but desperate to protect him, she agrees.
When Dani ends things, Alec sees through her lies but is too wounded to fight. Misunderstandings compound when he accuses her of abandoning him years ago and mentions the letters he sent that she supposedly ignored.
Dani, stunned, realizes she never received them.
Her world collapses further when her father announces he won’t transfer stateside after all. Dani spirals until Mick forces her to confront everything, guiding her through panic and listening as she confesses the truth about Benji and her feelings for Alec.
At a pub watching the tournament, Dani answers a call from her father and learns he secretly threw away Alec’s postcards and letters for years, believing they were inappropriate. Dani realizes Alec never stopped reaching out.
Moments later, she sees Alec violently checked by Benji during the game. He is taken to the hospital with a severe shoulder injury that threatens his future.
At the hospital, Mick delivers messages clearly fed to him by Dani, comforting Alec awkwardly but sincerely. When Alec summons Dani, she finally tells him everything: Benji’s ultimatum, her fear of ruining his future, and the truth about the lost postcards.
Alec immediately chooses her over everything else, declaring they’re back together before she can protest. Their families walk in on them kissing on the hospital bed, but neither cares.
After surgery, their relationship settles into something steady and long overdue. Alec resumes their childhood tradition of sending vintage postcards—now filled with coded affection—and Dani continues pushing toward her Harvard dream.
Months later, when her acceptance letter arrives, she runs straight to Alec’s house so they can open it together. With both of them headed to Boston—Alec to play at Boston College and Dani to Harvard—their futures finally align.
By June, Alec reflects on Southview’s state championship victory and the end of his high school career. With Dani at his side and a new chapter ahead of them, he feels ready for what comes next, grateful that the connection they thought they lost found its way back.
Characters
Dani Collins
Dani is the emotional core of Fake Skating. She starts as an academically driven perfectionist whose identity is wrapped tightly around getting into Harvard and surviving yet another move.
Years of being the “new kid” have left her with social anxiety, hypervigilance, and a deep reluctance to trust people or open up. She uses sarcasm and detachment as armor, trying to keep her world small and controllable: school, Harvard, and nothing else.
Underneath that, though, is a girl who desperately wants stability, a sense of home, and people who choose her and keep choosing her.
Her relationship with Alec exposes the tension between her brain and her heart. Intellectually, she wants clean lines and safe choices; emotionally, she is pulled toward the messy, vulnerable history she shares with him.
The “fake dating” setup ironically gives her the safety net she thinks she needs, because she can pretend her feelings are part of an act. But the more time she spends with Alec and his team, the more she realizes how much she’s been missing: community, joy, and the right to want things for herself beyond a resume.
The panic attacks she experiences at school and before the tournament bus underline how high the stakes feel to her and how fragile her sense of control really is.
Dani’s family dynamics are a huge part of her character. Her father has kept their relationship formal and distant, and his choice to stay in Germany instead of transferring closer confirms her deepest fear that she is not a priority.
When she learns that he threw away Alec’s postcards, it shatters not only her understanding of the past but also the story she has told herself about why people leave. That revelation reframes her history with Alec: she was not the one who detached; she was cut off without knowing it.
At the same time, she discovers that her mother once sacrificed a prestigious academic future to have her and build a family life. Those two parental choices pull Dani in opposite directions—one parent who made room for her, one who repeatedly did not—and push her to think about what she wants her own adult life to look like.
As she grows closer to Mick and is embraced by the Southview community, Dani gradually re-roots herself. The girl who always stayed on the outskirts becomes someone who helps manage the team, eats at the PNA, and has a spot in the stands that feels like it belongs to her.
Her biggest act of love comes when she breaks up with Alec to protect his future, agreeing to Benji’s ultimatum even though it guts her. That choice shows the depth of her loyalty and self-sacrificial streak, but it also reflects her tendency to carry burdens alone instead of trusting others.
By the end, when she confronts her dad, confesses the truth to Alec, and lets herself fully claim both her Harvard acceptance and her relationship, Dani has shifted from reactive survival to active choice. She allows herself to want big things and to believe that she deserves people who fight to stay in her life.
Alec Barczewski (Zeus)
Alec is introduced as the town’s golden boy: the star hockey player called Zeus, the center of Southview’s sports worship, and the one on whom everyone pins their hopes. Underneath that mythic persona is a teenager carrying enormous pressure.
His dad’s accident has turned Alec’s talent into a financial lifeline for his family, so hockey is not just a passion, it is his responsibility. The photo scandal with the bong brings that pressure into sharp focus.
Even though he never actually uses it, the image threatens his Olympic and college prospects, and adults around him respond by doubling down on expectations—he must be flawless in school, flawless in behavior, flawless on the ice. That leaves very little room for him to simply be a boy who makes mistakes, feels jealous, or wants a normal college experience.
Emotionally, Alec is a bundle of resentment, hurt, and longing where Dani is concerned. He has spent years believing she abandoned him, ghosting their postcard code and disappearing right when he needed her.
That belief hardens into a protective anger: he calls her “sketchy,” dismisses her in front of his friends in the hallway, and resists the idea of her becoming team manager. These defensive moves cover the reality that he is still deeply affected by her, attentive to her anxiety, and unable to resist orbiting her.
His actions often reveal the truth before he can admit it. When he jumps in during her panic attack in public speaking and distracts the teacher by insisting on going first, he exposes a core part of his character: beneath the swaggering captain is a boy who instinctively shields the people he loves, even if he’s furious with them.
The fake dating arrangement forces Alec to confront his feelings and his fear of vulnerability. Publicly he plays the role with charm—kissing her head at the PNA, acting like the confident boyfriend, teasing her—but privately he is far less casual.
The kiss dare at the PNA and the mall date both show how thin the line is between pretense and reality. The kisses don’t feel like superstition or strategy; they wake up old feelings that never really went away.
His frustration about her not telling the full truth when she “breaks up” with him stems from a deeper wound: he has a history of people and circumstances taking control away from him (his dad’s accident, the legal trouble with Benji, the photo scandal), so the idea that Dani might be pulling away again devastates him.
Once Alec learns the truth about the ultimatum and the destroyed postcards, his response is decisive and emotionally honest. He does not hesitate to choose Dani over Benji’s threat, declaring that they are back together and dismissing the supposed leverage.
That moment shows him reclaiming agency over his own life—refusing to let fear or other people’s manipulations dictate his happiness. His shoulder injury and surgery further humanize him: the invincible Zeus is sidelined, forced to sit out the championship run he helped make possible.
Instead of collapsing under that loss, he anchors himself in his future with Dani and his commitment to Boston College. By the end, Alec is still talented and competitive, but he is no longer defined only by hockey glory.
He is a young man who has allowed himself to love openly, admit what hurts, and imagine a future where he is more than just the town’s hero.
Mick Boche
Mick begins as a looming, almost mythic figure: the legendary former player whose name is revered by the boys at Southview and whose estrangement has shaped Dani’s entire family. For Dani, he is both a stranger and a symbol of rejection—he kicked them out at her grandmother’s funeral, stayed silent for years, and now feels more like a landlord than a grandfather.
His stiff attempts at conversation, awkward comments about how tall she is, and reliance on a “how to talk to your teenager” script make him seem emotionally clumsy and walled off. Yet even early on there are hints of something more vulnerable beneath his brusqueness, especially when he admits she gets her anxiety from him.
As the story progresses, Mick quietly becomes one of the most significant emotional anchors. His bond with Alec reveals a softer, more paternal side: he looks out for Alec’s injured shoulder, calls him out when needed, and ultimately supports his recovery after the devastating hit from Benji.
The boys idolize him as a hockey legend, but in private he is tentative and almost shy about reconnecting. His relationship with Dani slowly shifts from strained coexistence to genuine connection.
He drives her to school, talks her through breathing exercises during panic attacks, and sits with her at Tom Reid’s to watch the tournament when she cannot face the bus. Mick’s way of caring is understated; he is not sentimental with words, but his actions—showing up, sitting beside her, listening without judgment—carry more weight than any scripted speech.
When Dani confronts the tangled web of her family history, Mick becomes an unwitting bridge between past and present. By sharing the story of her mother’s fellowship and the life she gave up, he forces Dani to reconsider her assumptions about her mom and about how choices and regrets ripple through generations.
Mick’s own regrets are implied rather than explicitly spelled out: his estrangement, his harsh reaction at the funeral, and his instinct to push people away instead of risk losing them. Through his evolving relationship with both Dani and Alec, he gets a kind of second chance at family.
Watching him cheer from the stands, intervene when Benji’s dare goes too far, and stand in the hospital with a Charleston Chew in hand, we see a man trying, in his own halting way, to make amends and be worthy of the legend his name carries.
Benji Worthington
Benji functions as the story’s primary human antagonist, but he is more than just a cardboard villain. On the surface, he is the rich boy next door who has rebranded himself as “Ben,” appears charming, and initially seems like a harmless blast from Dani’s past.
Underneath that polished exterior lies resentment, entitlement, and a long-standing rivalry with Alec. Benji is used to getting what he wants—attention, social status, control—and he resents Alec for overshadowing him in their shared history, both on and off the ice.
His manipulation of Dani reveals the way he weaponizes power. When she comes to his house, terrified he’ll press charges after Alec punches him, he recognizes exactly how vulnerable she is and exploits it.
His condition—that she break up with Alec if she wants him to stay silent—is not just about revenge; it is about taking away “the one thing Alec has always wanted. ” In that moment, Benji is not attacking Alec directly on the ice or through the legal system; he is attacking Alec’s emotional life, deliberately targeting the relationship that makes Alec happiest.
The fact that he frames this as something he would “love” to do shows how much bitterness he has been carrying.
On the ice, Benji’s dangerous hit that leaves Alec injured is the physical manifestation of the hostility he has harbored for years. The check from behind into the boards crosses the line from competitive aggression into recklessness, underscoring how little regard he has for Alec’s safety or future.
Benji’s role highlights the darker side of sports culture and privilege: someone who has always had options and protection chooses to use his leverage to harm rather than to grow. He stands in stark contrast to Alec, who, despite his mistakes, is constantly trying to balance responsibility, loyalty, and ambition.
Dani’s Mother
Dani’s mom is one of the quiet heroes of the story. She appears, at first, as the warm, slightly frazzled single parent trying to rebuild a life after divorce, but the more we learn, the more her depth emerges.
She is the one who brings Dani back to Southview, willing to face old wounds with Mick in pursuit of some kind of stability for her daughter. At the Barczewskis’ house and the PNA, she easily reconnects with old friends, revealing how deeply she once belonged in this community and how much she has sacrificed since leaving.
Her parenting style blends honesty, gentleness, and an almost stubborn faith in Dani’s resilience. She encourages Dani to reach out to Alec if she needs help, reminds her that Alec is still a good kid even when his public image takes a hit, and comforts her after the breakup without pressuring her to confess more than she is ready to share.
When Dani collapses over her dad’s decision to stay in Germany, her mom becomes the safe place where Dani can come completely undone. The conversation about honesty—where she urges Dani not to bury the truth—foreshadows how essential openness will be in repairing Dani’s relationships.
The revelation that Dani’s mom once had a prestigious academic fellowship but gave it up when she became pregnant reframes her character dramatically. She is not just a supportive side character; she is someone who walked away from the very kind of opportunity Dani is now chasing.
That choice carries both love and tragedy: she chose family over personal ambition, but she also lost a part of herself in the process. Knowing this complicates how we read her encouragement of Dani’s Harvard dream.
She is not living vicariously through her daughter; she is making sure Dani sees possibilities she herself gave up. At the same time, her history raises questions about how women’s choices are constrained by circumstance and expectation.
By the end, she stands as a model of quiet strength, someone who has endured heartbreak and reinvention yet still shows up, cheers loudly in the stands, and believes that her daughter deserves every door to be open.
Dani’s Father (The Colonel)
Dani’s father is a lingering absence as much as a presence. His life as a colonel, constantly stationed abroad, has shaped Dani’s rootless childhood: endless moves, strict structure, and a relationship that feels more like a formal check-in than a warm bond.
Their rare calls are stiff, and even when he asks where she is, his first reaction is disapproval of the hockey-centric culture around her, as if her environment is a problem to be corrected rather than part of her life. He measures worth through discipline and academic or career achievement, not emotional connection.
When he tells Dani about the potential assignment at Offutt, it seems like a turning point. For once, he asks what she wants, and she allows herself to hope.
Her wish—that he come closer, attend her graduation, and finally be physically present—exposes how hungry she is for his involvement. His eventual decision to stay in Germany confirms a painful pattern: in a choice between career and closeness, he picks career.
This time, however, Dani is older and more aware, so the blow lands differently. It is not just disappointment; it is clarity about his priorities.
The most devastating detail is his casual admission that he threw away Alec’s postcards and letters for years because he thought they were “weird. ” That offhand confession reveals the extent of his control over Dani’s emotional world.
He did not just navigate their moves; he decided which connections were allowed to continue. By discarding the postcards, he robbed her of a sustaining friendship and gave Alec reason to believe she had abandoned him.
His inability to see the gravity of that act shows how blind he is to emotional realities. He is not a villain in the same sense as Benji, but he is a source of deep harm through neglect, rigidity, and a lack of imagination about what his daughter needs.
Cassie
Cassie is the social glue that helps Dani transition from isolated newcomer to integrated member of the Southview community. Assigned as Dani’s student guide, she could have remained a surface-level acquaintance, but her relentless friendliness and determination turn her into a genuine friend.
She is the one who gives Dani a tour of the school, introduces her to the hockey world, and refuses to let her hide forever in the library. Her optimism has an almost comic quality—she treats “team manager for a high-intensity hockey program” like an easy extracurricular—but that very casualness lowers the stakes enough for Dani to consider trying.
She is also the person who champions Dani in front of others. Cassie tells the boys and the coach about Dani’s Harvard deferral and problem with extracurriculars, not to embarrass her, but to rally support and create opportunities.
It is Cassie who pushes the idea of co-manager, drags Dani to the Douglas Gowo Arena, and normalizes the tasks that initially terrify her, from filming practice to using the Sparx machine. Cassie believes that the world will make space for Dani if she just steps into it, and that belief is contagious.
As a character, Cassie embodies the healthier side of school spirit and sports culture: community, shared responsibility, and joy. She is not consumed by rivalry or pressure; she loves the team, loves the town, and wants as many people as possible to feel included.
Through her, Dani learns that not every social interaction is a threat and that there are people who will meet her where she is—panic attacks, Harvard stress, and all—and still insist she belongs.
Richie, Vinny, Kyle, Zack, Reid
Alec’s teammates form the broader social ecosystem of the story. As a group, they represent the chaotic, loud, sometimes immature but deeply loyal culture of high school sports.
Richie and Vinny, in particular, act as the bridge between Dani and the team. They are the ones who first connect her to Mick’s legacy, call her cute, and push the idea of her becoming co-manager.
Their obsession with hockey lore, superstitions, and dares (like the kiss at the PNA) illustrates how seriously they take their season while still wrapping everything in jokes and rituals.
These boys are not purely comic relief, though. They provide Alec with a found family that cushions the intense pressure he faces.
Their teasing about Zeus and his supposed invincibility reveals how they see him, but their constant presence—at bonfires, games, and parties—also shows how much they rely on him and, in turn, are there for him. When the season and their undefeated streak are on the line, they cling to superstitions like the kiss dares, highlighting how fragile confidence can feel in high-stakes situations.
As they rope Dani into their world, they unintentionally help heal old wounds. Through their eyes, she sees Alec not just as the boy who hurt her, but as the captain they admire, the friend they trust, and the leader who plays through pain.
They also humanize the hockey machine for her: instead of a faceless institution, it becomes a group of kids with weird traditions, loud laughs, and big dreams. In the end, that sense of team and community is what makes the championship run—and Alec and Dani’s shared future in Boston—feel earned rather than purely individual victories.
Themes
Childhood Bonds and the Difficulty of Outgrowing the Past
The connection between Alec and Dani begins long before the events of Fake Skating, and the strength of that early bond continues to shape every choice they make in the present. Their childhood friendship is not treated as something quaint or easily outgrown; instead, it forms the emotional foundation they keep returning to even when they believe they’ve moved on.
That history carries weight—not just as nostalgia but as an unresolved part of who they are. The coded postcards, the shared summers, the abandoned shed by the pond, and the innocence of their first kiss linger in their minds as a reminder of a simpler, more trusting version of themselves.
But the past isn’t preserved in amber. Misunderstandings, silence, and painful assumptions transform those memories into something jagged.
Alec’s belief that Dani abandoned him and Dani’s belief that Alec bitterly shut her out reveal how childhood bonds can fracture in ways that feel permanent because they are tied to formative emotions. Their reunion forces them to confront the ways their younger selves still influence their behavior—Alec’s instinct to protect Dani even when he’s furious, Dani’s instinct to seek safety through withdrawal, both of them reacting to old hurts rather than present realities.
What makes this theme resonate is the recognition that childhood connections don’t disappear; they evolve, warp, or harden depending on how people grow. Through their reconnection, they learn that the past cannot be avoided or overwritten.
It must be understood, spoken about, and reinterpreted through who they are now. The story emphasizes that growing up does not mean discarding childhood relationships but figuring out how to carry them without letting old wounds dictate the present.
Anxiety, Pressure, and the Struggle for Self-Control
Dani’s anxiety and Alec’s performance pressure operate as parallel forces throughout Fake Skating, shaping their behavior in ways neither fully understands about the other. Dani’s anxiety is not depicted as a quirk or a one-off obstacle; it is a constant presence, informing how she enters rooms, navigates crowds, prepares her words, and anticipates worst-case scenarios.
Her panic attacks, her avoidance of cafeterias and assemblies, and her strategic attempts to remain unnoticed reveal how exhausting it is for her simply to exist in unfamiliar spaces. The school’s hockey-obsessed environment amplifies her fears, making her feel invisible, misplaced, and overwhelmed.
Alec’s pressure looks different on the surface—fierce athletic expectations, scouts, reputation, and the responsibility of securing his family’s financial future—but the emotional mechanics are strikingly similar. He clings to hockey as the only thing he can control, pushing through pain, fear, and scrutiny with a level of intensity that borders on desperation.
His identity has been narrowed to winning, leading, and never disappointing anyone. Both characters are trapped by expectations they feel obligated to meet: Dani must be the perfect Harvard applicant, Alec the flawless star athlete.
Their inner battles mirror each other even when neither realizes it. Their shared moments of vulnerability—Alec interrupting Dani’s speech to give her a way out, Dani helping Alec treat his shoulder, their conversations in quiet corners—show how meaningful it is to be seen by someone who understands the pressure to hold everything together.
The theme underlines how adolescence magnifies internal struggles and how support, honesty, and emotional presence can become lifelines when someone feels overwhelmed by their own mind or the demands placed on them.
Family Conflict, Legacy, and the Weight of Expectation
Families in Fake Skating are messy, flawed, and deeply influential, shaping the characters’ decisions far more than they admit. Dani’s fractured relationship with her grandfather Mick creates a tension that defines her return to Southview.
Her mother’s quiet sacrifices, revealed later in the story, force Dani to reconsider what she thought she understood about the adults in her life. Her father’s emotional distance and his pattern of placing duty above family leave a hole she keeps trying to ignore until it becomes impossible.
These family dynamics create both instability and strength. Dani’s longing for dependable relationships makes her susceptible to guilt, fear, and self-blame, especially when she believes Alec’s future might be ruined because of her.
Mick’s journey toward reconciliation is a reflection of generational regret—the realization that distance, pride, and stubbornness can destroy relationships unless someone chooses to repair what was broken. Alec’s family struggles are equally significant.
His father’s accident, the financial strain, and the community’s expectations turn him into both a symbol and a lifeline. He skates not just for himself but for the people counting on him, carrying a legacy he didn’t choose.
His coaches, teammates, and even townspeople place him under a microscope, making every mistake feel catastrophic. The story emphasizes how family can become both a source of comfort and a burden to bear.
Every character is shaped by inherited expectations—academic excellence, athletic greatness, emotional resilience—and they often make decisions based on what will protect or please their families rather than what is healthiest for them. This theme highlights the struggle to define oneself outside the shadow of familial obligation while still craving the belonging that family represents.
Identity, Reputation, and How Communities Shape Perception
Southview is a small town with a loud voice, and the way it defines people becomes one of the most influential forces in Fake Skating. Dani enters as “Mick Boche’s granddaughter,” a role imposed before anyone knows who she is.
Alec lives as “Zeus,” a local legend whose identity has been consumed by hype, expectation, and superstition. These labels overshadow their true selves and complicate how they move through the story.
Dani’s attempts to remain invisible are constantly disrupted by the community’s fascination with her family background and her proximity to Alec. She becomes a topic of conversation before she even meets half the people discussing her.
The town interprets her actions through the lens of who they believe she is, not who she feels herself to be. Alec, on the other hand, is unable to separate his personal life from his athletic persona.
His smallest missteps—being photographed with a bong, protecting Dani, struggling with pain—become amplified by the community’s fixation on his image. His reputation is both a pedestal and a cage, dictating how he acts and even how he speaks about Dani, especially early in the novel when he distances himself from her to maintain control over how others see him.
Southview’s obsession with hockey magnifies these pressures, turning normal teenage mistakes into community-wide spectacles. The theme examines how difficult it is to grow authentically when a community assigns roles that feel impossible to shed.
It also illustrates the courage required to push back against those assumptions, whether by speaking honestly, forming new connections, or choosing to be known for something beyond the identity others impose.
Love, Forgiveness, and the Courage to Choose Vulnerability
At its emotional core, Fake Skating is a story about two people learning how to be brave enough to trust each other again. Their relationship begins with unresolved hurt, anger, and miscommunication, yet the pull between them is undeniable.
What makes this theme compelling is the recognition that love is not portrayed as an instant fix but as a series of difficult choices. Their history holds both the sweetness of childhood affection and the sting of perceived abandonment.
When they are forced into proximity—through school, the manager position, and the fake dating arrangement—their unresolved emotions surface in ways that are tense, awkward, sometimes humorous, and often deeply emotional. But forgiveness requires truth, and both have versions of the past that must be dismantled.
Dani learns the truth about the discarded postcards. Alec learns the truth about Benji’s coercion.
Each revelation demands vulnerability, pushing them to rebuild trust piece by piece. Their slow shift from resentment to tenderness shows how love grows through honesty, empathy, and shared courage.
Even their moments of closeness—icing Alec’s shoulder, comforting each other after games, supporting one another through fear—reflect how love can develop naturally when two people feel safe enough to be fully seen. The theme emphasizes that forgiveness is not forgetting the past but allowing someone to step into the present without being defined by old wounds.
Their relationship becomes a testament to choosing vulnerability despite fear, choosing each other despite obstacles, and believing that a future built together can be stronger than the misunderstandings that once tore them apart.