Review: Deep End

Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

Published By: Sphere Publishing
Publication Date: February 4, 2025
Date Read: May 24, 2025
Genre: Adult – Romance / Sports Romance
Source: Bought
Format: Hardback
Pages: 464

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A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water…

“If it never occurred to you that you could have acted less selfishly, maybe you’re not the nice guy you think you are.”

Despite me being a huge Ali Hazelwood fan, and me having read all of her books since the release of The Love Hypothesis, there is a good chance that had this not been selected as my book club’s choice one month, I probably never would have picked this one up. It’s no surprise to any of my followers that I am not a spicy girl. I do not enjoy reading spice, and any books that are dubbed as super spicy it’s a pass from me. There are many an author that have gone on my ‘never read’ list because of there being more spice than plot. While I am a self professed Ali Hazelwood fangirl, finding out that Whet… sorry Deep End (this book will forever be known to me as Whet) was about a couple who bond over their shared ‘kinks’, I was like oh no… I’m going to hate this. While this is not my favourite Ali book, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised about this book and I am really glad that I actually gave it a chance. Now if you want all my unfiltered thoughts about this book, buckle in as I have a lot of them and this review is probably going to be a lengthy one.

First of all, let’s talk about the kinky stuff… honestly this book is no where near as spicy as I was led to believe. I personally would say this is no more spicy than Ali’s other books, it’s just a different kind of spice. Did I love the spice? Absolutely not. Did I skip most of the spicy scenes? Yes. However, I absolutely appreciate that this book exists as I feel like Ali has done a phenomenal job of portraying how a BDSM kind of lifestyle and relationship can be done in a healthy way. I did actually read Fifty Shades of Grey back in the day and hated it. I’m pretty sure that’s what put me off spicy books for life… I found it quite abusive so I was very apprehensive about reading another book about this sort of lifestyle. However, the majority of this book centres around discussing this type of lifestyle and I actually really appreciated that. It really delves into the discussion of what each character wants and prefers, and a lot around the consent of all of this. I don’t think consent is discussed and talked about enough in romance books so this was definitely a plus for me. I also really appreciated how Ali explored the fact that what each character prefers in the bedroom doesn’t necessarily correlate to how they are in real life. For example, Lukas is dominating in the bedroom but there isn’t an aggressive bone in his body, and he’s honestly such a golden retriever boyfriend outside of the bedroom. I really think that this is a good healthy depiction of this kind of lifestyle and I’m really glad that it exists to show a healthy loving yet kinky relationship.

Once again, I found Ali’s writing just so easy to read. There’s something about her writing and her characters that just completely draws me in. Despite my reservations about going into this book, I soon found myself already 150 pages through in one sitting. Her writing is just so easy to get lost in and her characters are always so well rounded and developed that you just feel like they’re genuine friends who you want to know what happens to them. I loved the characters in this book, and honestly there is so much more depth to our two main characters than their sexual preferences. Yes, that’s what they initially bond over but soon you see so much depth to both of them. Both have been through childhood trauma and they find comfort in each other. Scarlett had an abusive father who verbally abused her throughout her childhood, and Lukas upon learning this helps her through every instance of when she feels unsafe around people. I really liked seeing how they were with each other, and how different it was with other characters. Lukas is often depicted by other characters as cold and not really caring about anything, but we see a totally different picture when he is with Scarlett and I really loved that.

I really loved the fact that Lukas and Scarlett, alongside being very successful athletes, are pre-med students, who end up in a biology project together (loved the Adam and Olive cameo), and so we still got some of the STEM themes that we all have come to love in an Ali Hazelwood book. When this book was first announced, I was so upset to see it was a sports romance, as I really adore the science aspects of her books, so it was a pleasant surprise to see this was still an element of it. I’d have loved if there was a little bit more of the STEM aspects, but I do appreciate that the sports element was the most important fact of their lives at the moment. Moving onto the romance… honestly the romance between Lukas and Scarlett was so adorable and really sweet. Outside of the kinky bedroom shenanigans, they were so good for each other, the more I read the more I just wanted to see them get together. Seeing Lukas support Scarlett publicly, and help her with her diving after her accident was just adorable. I just loved everything about them, and as they started to fall in love, Lukas was more than happy to have ‘normal’ sexual relations with her as well. I feel like this was such a great way of showing that emotion and love between them. They are possibly one of my favourite Ali couples, I found them just such a great couple.

Deep End has definitely made me eat my words as I actually ended up really enjoying it. It’s a great book, and if, like me, you are apprehensive because of the sexual content, I think you should still give it a go, as there is so much more to Deep End than that aspect. It’s a healthy and loving depiction of a different type of relationship, and I think it’s really great to have that sort of representation coming from such a popular author. There was just as much amazing plot, as sex in the book. It’s not one that I would end up re-reading, but I’m so glad that I gave it a go and read it. Thank you to my book club for giving me the push to read this one.

“Confidence is not about being able to do shit, Vandy. Confidence is showing up, and trying, and not giving up because deep in your heart you know who you are and what you’re capable of.”