Scarlett looks like she has it all: she goes to Stanford as a top collegiate diver and is applying to med school. But underneath it all …
- She’s a massive ball of anxiety and insecurity
- She’s off her diving game for reasons that will become clear
- Family sadness, although her stepmother and dog sound very cool
- Isolated
- She hasn’t connected with anyone since her one and only previous boyfriend, who wasn’t into the domination she craves
- German is dragging down her grade point average
She’s trying on all fronts. She’s got a therapist and she’s trying to make friends. Enter Lukas Blomqvist, Swedish swimming superstar.
What I liked about Deep End, in random order
- Learning about diving
- Friendship with other women: Pen was so fun, Victoria enjoyably sarcastic, Miryam (however you spell it, I did audio) had killer one-liners. Pretty much all the secondary characters were fun and thought out
- Some hot scenes. Personally, the warnings at the beginning made it sound like the kink would be over the top. It’s not, to me.
- Barb the orthopaedic surgeons stepmother and their dog, Pipsqueak
- Lukas has a thing for women smarter than him (and he’s no slouch)
- Talking about the MCAT and computational biology. Is a foreign language requirement a thing for U.S. medical schools? I’m a physician, and it’s not required in Canada. Feel free to emigrate, Scarlett!
- Learning a little about Sweden. Who knew they had a word for sex-induced bedhead?
Minor things I didn’t like
- Scarlett never thought she was good at anything yet was a goddess at everything. For example, she thought her professor was accusing her of plagiarism when it turned out he wanted to recruit her to do a study, AND she was better at modelling computational biology than the graduate students. A professor offered to write her a med school recommendation, and she couldn’t figure out what he was saying. Lukas literally asked her why she thinks he’s ****ing her, and she can’t answer! I know imposter syndrome exists, and would make sense with her emotional background, but the discrepancy did get to me. At some point, she should clue in.
- Epilogue “a few years later,” when he’s an M.D./Ph.D. You mean A DECADE after? Med school itself is usually 4 years, and even if you’re a superstar, you will need a few years for your Ph.D. I will excuse this because of their cute cat and cute notes and cute cuteness.
- On audio, the female narrator would say Blomqvist like she was an exchange student getting graded on her pronunciation. Admittedly it was probably in character
- SPOILER:
Lukas was always saving her. Are his bro friends making her uncomfortable? Don’t worry, Lukas will magically appear (after straight up ignoring her) to escort her away. Of course he’s tall, ripped, dominant as hell, and has a magic dick too. Honestly, I found him sort of a boring AI until he finally explained at the end that he wasn’t perfect.
Thank you, Ali Hazelwood! I adore STEM, female friendship, cute dogs, and learning factoids. For me, the guy comes second, but I enjoyed the smut more than usual this time.
