I, like many other romance readers, have been waiting for Deep End since its announced release. Mixing the academic romances of The Love Hypothesis and Love, Theoretically with the college sports romance that have also been making the rounds on bookish social media, Deep End sounded like a great time and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on what I hoped would be the marriage of two worlds of fiction I enjoy reading.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specialises 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 realises that her heart might be treading into dangerous water…

Fair warning – this is not a YA romance. Please don’t think it is because of the college age characters. Though I guess I can’t stop you from reading it when those same college age sports romances I mentioned before are read by teens and adults. My grudges towards reader demographics for romance books aside, Deep End had a twist I was not expecting. It certainly threw me for a bit of a loop upon reading the first few chapters, in part because I couldn’t see such a topic being brought up in that way. I won’t say what the topic is as it is a key part of the read 9and you can likely find it through other reviews), but I will say that while it was a bit of a shock to come across it was an interesting topic to navigate in the environment Scarlett and Lukas are in. It’s completely natural, and there is nothing to be ashamed of, so I think Ali Hazelwood should actually get some props for exploring the topic as she has.

As for the plot, it isn’t bad. I wouldn’t say it is like the Love Hypothesis or Love, Theoretically in the sense they have a two-stage conflict structure going on, whereas I felt Deep End only has one key conflict threaded throughout the novel. What may serve as the mid-point conflict resolution works but it also comes down to character development and plot progression rather than a conflict resolution. The relationship development is steady and it helps to destigmatise the topic at hand, butte overarching themes and plot is pretty standard for a college sports romance. Not to say that’s bad or uninteresting because the story was engaging and interesting, but I wouldn’t say Deep End is up with my favourites of Ali Hazelwood’s works.

Would I still recommend Deep End? Sure! Deep End is a decent college sports romance that dips into the spicy side of things and yet still follows the journey of a young athelete coming back from injury and mental blocks. It is a great read to see character develpment in Scarlett, a girl who goes from being at the lowest point in her life to up at the top of her game once more, and while she may be a flawed character to some she is equally a strong, loyal, and caring character that I had much joy in following.