Deep End; Ali Hazelwood

I really liked this latest Hazelwood romance at the start. Scarlett, with her anxiety and perfectionism, her sarcasm and understated humor started off as a much more grounded character than the usual quirky scientist. While this book takes place in college, I liked that the characters didn’t feel like children which helped a lot given that, of the Hazelwood books I have read, this one seems to have the most in terms of sexual encounters. And they are steamy scenes, even if I had issues with their aftercare routine, but more on that in a second. But for a book that started so strong with a FMC that felt so different from her previous books, I still ended up disappointed.

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You see, Scarlett has a block around a particular dive after getting an almost career ending injury. I thought her getting over that block and reclaiming her career would be the driving plotline that her and Lukas bond over. Except that her therapist is kind of useless and her role completely negated in the story entirely when Lukas “fixes” her with one conversation, but that’s well after they start their sexual relationship. One that felt so forced because of an awkward moment with Pen that Lukas and Scarlett never got to a place where I truly believed they cared for each other in this dramatic, loving way. Especially when they are quasi together for a year and yet no one notices, and he never bothers to tell people he and his previous girlfriend broke up? The conflict was just far too forced to feel natural to me.
 
Much like other of this authors leading men, Lukas is the very strong, very *ahem* large, silent type. Often brooding and vaguely grumpy. So how he just innately knows Scarlett so well after sharing their kink sheet is a bit too unbelievable in a contemporary romance. And speaking of the kink sheet… for a book that is supposed to be about these two characters exploring that side of things, they don’t actually explore or discover anything together. You never know what was on their sheets, just that they match up and that Scarlett wants Lukas to take charge and use her. Which is fine, but Scarlett should really see someone about how constantly she sobs during sex and having orgasms. The amount she cries, how often it got brought up (usually through Lukas licking them up), unfortunately made me start to feel like Scarlett, for all her brilliance and strength on the diving platform, was disconcertingly sensitive? Which really didn’t line up and, you guessed it, started to bother me the longer this book dragged on.

Because here’s the thing: this book is about 100 pages too long. The plot is thin at best and gets stretched out so long that Pen’s arc, and the conflict that comes with it, made little sense because of how long it took to come about. Which means the little things that normally would just remain little annoyances became bigger and bigger and dragged down my enjoyment. Like Lukas being just kind of this bland character that gave me nothing in terms of chemistry, and ultimately, I thought he was very poor in the aftercare department given what he and Scarlett do together. Which is just my personal preference when it comes to power exchange and dom and sub relationships, but since the book started to lag… welp.

If the book had been condensed a bit so the pacing didn’t lag, I probably would have liked this more at the end. I liked that both characters are very smart, no stereotypical dumb jocks here, but even that couldn't save things as the story plodded onward. There were some really great lines and moments of that classic fun banter you expect from Hazelwood, but not enough to keep me from being utterly annoyed come the epilogue, hence the disappointed 3 stars. I think, ultimately, while there is nothing wrong with this author’s writing or her characters (I still love me a STEM FMC), I just don’t think her stories are for me.