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...
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First line:
It all starts when Penelope Ross leans in over the restaurant's solid wooden table, lifts her index finger, and declares, "Tenth circle of hell: you find the love of your life, but the sex is intensely meh."
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Source:
Source:
Paperback
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Rating:
2 dives out of 5
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The beginning was kinda rough as I got used to Scarlett's awkwardness. As someone who hates the secondhand embarrassment felt while reading (When I was initially reading Harry Potter, I had to pause one of the books for a couple of weeks because I couldn't handle it), it took me awhile to overcome that feeling and love Scarlett for all of her flaws and bonuses. Once I did, I started to really enjoy the story.
But then everything started to devolve around 40-50% through. Scarlett and Lukas spent what felt like 75% of the book with one of them avoiding the other. We have a third act breakup. We have the ex who is constantly getting in the way and refuses to tell everybody they've broken up. And Lukas refuses to put his foot down and tell people so that he and Scarlett don't have to sneak around. The spice also felt disingenuous as the book went on.
I'm also on my chapter tirade again because, at least at the beginning of the book, there were some very abrupt chapter endings that felt like the chapter was unfinished in some cases and some cases it just really affected the flow of a scene.
I'm not really seeing all the hype with this book. It has all the tropes that are generally hated like miscommunication (or in this case, refusing to communicate) and third act breakup. This could have been a great book about two athletes coming together to help each other heal and grow and falling in love along the way. Instead, we got a book were the couple actively avoids each other for most of the book and then are expected to love them being together after having barely any time of them being together. This book should be a pass, there are much better sports romances out there.
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