Deep End by Ali Hazelwood

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Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
Published by Berkley on February 4, 2025
Age Group & Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Library

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...

I seem to have a love-hate relationship (bordering on mostly hate) with Ali Hazelwood’s books, but Deep End is making me second guess — I thought it was maybe the different writing styles with YA (I loved Check & Mate) vs Adult, and yet I enjoyed this a lot?

By no means is this my favorite book of 2025, because there are definitely issues I had with Deep End, but overall? I enjoyed it a lot. Hazelwood’s latest novel follows Scarlett Vandermeer, a competitive diver at Stanford who’s focused on getting into med school and recovering from her injury. She starts an agreement with Lukas Blomqvist after it’s revealed they both have similar tastes.

I love how this features a competitive diver and swimmer in a college setting with a STEM background. (Also a bonus for those who loved one of Hazelwood’s previous works: cameos!) The chemistry between Scarlett and Lukas was a delight to read, and I loved their characters. Scarlett was so relatable with her constant striving for perfectionism and planning and just wanting to be on top of things; Lukas was just so blunt and I aspire to have the confidence he had to tell a reporter off politely when they pry into his personal life.

“I’m usually overthinking something. Desperately trying to avoid screwing up and working myself up to a panic.” Am I taking up too much space? Boring you? Disappointing you? Would you rather be somewhere else, with someone else? “Overwhelmed by the burden of wondering whether I’m doing it right.”

I also just love how therapy is central to Scarlett’s development and the chapters/scenes where she’s trying to process her trauma and heal. However, I feel as her relationship with Lukas develops, it seems to fall a little on the wayside — especially with the trauma that she went through and the impact that it had. Granted, everyone’s healing journey is different, and trauma effects everyone differently, so Scarlett might not need as many sessions as I or someone else would need, but it just… didn’t sit right with me when she clearly needed a lot more help (Professional!) than just getting into a dom/sub relationship.

The one big thing I despised the most was Pen. God, I have no clue how to begin with her? For one thing, Pen was the one who suggests Lukas and Scarlett should get together, and she’s got quite a long history with Lukas — I don’t know about you, but I’d personally feel extremely icky about swiping one of my closest friends’ exes so soon (if ever) after like seven years of a relationship even if the compatibility might be better. 🥴

What really grinds my gears is how she seems to just be very invasive and interruptive to Scarlett and Lukas’ growing relationship, even though she was the one who broke it off with him and wanted to explore having other relationships, have fun, etc.

“I want other things, too. I want to go to a party and flirt freely. I want to be hit on without feeling like I’m betraying someone. I want to have fun.”

Literally her exact words. And Lukas, bless his heart, just… acts like a proper friend who is overall supportive of Pen and is there for her when she needs it because she was there for him when he needed it years ago. Which there’s nothing wrong at all with that because I’m all for supportive friends, but Pen’s just constantly in their space even though she’s essentially moved on and has her own new partner. She’s in their space so much so that Scarlett’s worried so much over what Pen will think and whatnot, and honestly? It was a little irritating to read, and it was very awkward. And then what Pen does to Scarlett, too? Makes me want to scream. But it’s fine, everything is fine.

I do think Hazelwood’s writing has definitely improved, though. Some things that bugged me so much in previous novels (like the many descriptions of how big the partners are; they were so often I actually started tallying how many times because I was That Annoyed™) occur way less. Deep End just overall entered my life at the perfect time when I was searching for a romance, and I think I’ll be looking forward to reading Hazelwood’s future works even if I’ll still be a little wary.