A coming of age story with a musical twist. Already up there as one of my favourite books forever. I like the characters despite Joe and Percy being insufferable. This writer’s musical knowledge will knock you out.
I don’t think I’ve felt as sad as I do today now it’s over. Please hurry with your next book!

This was such a delight and very healing for my inner indie sleaze teenage self. As a kid growing up in a small town in Germany, I waited all week to go to the "big city" on the weekend to get my music magazines and find new to me artist such as Interpol or The Strokes on their sampler CDs. So this book feels like it was written especially for me.
The setting in the early 00s was nostalgic and I loved that the novel spanned quite a few years, describing different iterations of the indie music scene. The main character Percy was relatable to me, a fellow music nerd. Her on-and-off relationship with Joe was quite dramatic and well-paced throughout the novel, even though I was kind of more invested in her friendship with Zoe. Ultimately this is a book about creative collaboration, and it succeeds in showing the highs and lows of such a relationship.
If you love Daisy Jones & The Six, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, When Harry Met Sally and really miss indie sleaze, this is the book for you.
(Thank you to NetGalley, Holly Brickley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction, The Borough Press for providing me with an eARC for this book in exchange for my honest feedback. All opinions in this review are my own.)

A must for music lovers everywhere. I got completely lost in this amazing story. A must read. Listen to the Spotify playlist along side this.

2.5 stars for this - Not bad, not good. Takes music VERY seriously which just isn’t for me tbh I wanted more of the relationship side of things

It was definitely interesting seeing how each chapter title was a song that Percy ended up relating to her life in some way, and I also really liked being in the early 2000s era and watching all these songs come out while Percy’s life changes and grows. There were a few scenes with Joe that I was invested in, but I just wanted MORE!

absolutely adored this book!
Deep Cuts is a fun and emotional debut about music, friendship, and growing up. It follows Percy, a music critic, and Joe, a talented songwriter, who meet at college and start a close, complicated relationship. The story is told in a cool way with playlists, text messages, and chapter titles that feel like songs. As Joe becomes famous, Percy stays behind, and that quiet sadness runs through the book. Brickley writes with love for music and the people who make it. I aforeddddd this book

3.5 /5 - thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC!

Percy and Joe are messy characters which I personally loved - I really bought into their bond and I was invested in them as people (even though Percy is a bit of a snob). It was slow for me at points and I found myself skimming the pages and pages of music analysis. A lot of the references went right over my head so I didn't connect with that part of the book but I could appreciate Percy's enthusiasm for analysing lyrics.

Looking forward to the film!

I absolutely loved this book. It give me everything I wanted from daisy Jones and the six but didnt get.

Absolutely loved all the music references. My playlist grew with every chapter.

This is a very strong debut and knowing it will be adapted into a movie is making me more excited to see the characters come to life. Percy and Joe's story is mesmerizing, delightfully witty, and contains a lot of reference to music. If it weren't for Percy and Joe's three dimensional character, I wouldn't have enjoyed the story.

This is a captivating, music-drenched journey through the early 2000s, following Percy and Joe, two college students whose lives become inextricably linked by their shared obsession with music. This novel isn't just a romance; it's a deep dive into creative collaboration, ambition, and the messy realities of growing up.

Holly Brickley’s Deep Cuts got a lot of pre-publication buzz, with early readers name-dropping novels like Daisy Jones and the Six as a comparator (mainly because this is also connected to music, and with a complicated central relationship). As it turns out, the buzz was justified: this is a very good novel, and I quickly found myself invested in Percy and Joe’s fates.

I had high hopes for Deep Cuts before I read it, and it did not disappoint. I’ve long been drawn to stories about music — in novels and also biographies of favourite artists, and this novel looked like it would suit my tastes perfectly. And, I’m happy to say, it exceeded my expectations. Perhaps its greatest strength lies in the characters. Brickley does a great job developing the main characters in realistic and natural ways. The core relationship is very well-written, not always romantic, but believable (if not desirable) in its messiness and complications. One could see in Percy and Joe’s relationship echoes of some of the best stories about art born from fraught relationships — be they fictional (à la Daisy Jones & the Six and The Lightning Bottles) or non-fiction (see, for example, Fleetwood Mac).

The novel, in many ways a bildungsroman, takes us through Percy’s musical and personal journey, as she comes to grips with the power of her musical and emotional connection to Joe, but also while navigating a world that too-often relegates female creative partners to the footnotes of history. Percy must also navigate growing up and finding her place in the world and with others — her friendships and relationships are well-written, and many of her social and personal struggles will no doubt resonate with plenty of readers. The author’s love for really music comes through in her characters (I related quite strongly with Percy’s music obsession), and it’s used as a great narrative device throughout the story.

With engaging, three-dimensional and realistic characters, Deep Cuts is a story about the messiness of life, and the power of music to bring people together. Definitely recommended. Very much looking forward to Brickley’s next book, whatever it happens to be.

I loved this book. I loved the music references and the effortless way the Holly Brickley writes. It was a pure joy to drift in to.

Only published in March this year, this extraordinary debut novel has already been snapped up for a film adaptation starring Austin Butler and Saoirse Ronan in the lead roles. Set across America in the early 2000s, the book follows two twenty-something students on separate but inextricably-entangled creative journeys that both bring them together and push them apart in an equally frustrating and totally compelling manner. Joe Morrow is an extraordinarily talented singer and musician: Percy Marks is the untrained yet naturally-gifted producer and songwriter who isn’t afraid of sharing her opinions, and has the power to transform Joe’s tracks into once-in-a-lifetime classics. After a frenzied discussion about Hall and Oates in a Berkeley student bar, Joe – who already has a long term girlfriend, Zoe – asks Percy to help him with a song he’s been working on, and both their lives change forever. Over several years they collaborate, they quarrel, they break each other’s hearts and the hearts of others who accidentally stumble into this life-long love story: think Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, except with music rather than video games – or High Fidelity for geriatric millennials. Unputdownable, unforgettable, drenched in early-noughties music nostalgia, this absolutely must be read before the adaptation arrives: the ideal book for music lovers over a long summer break.

Reviewed in Cambridge Edition July 2025

This started out ok but unfortunately I lost interest very quickly. It just wasn’t for me which is such a shame but thank you for access to the eARC to try out.

Deep Cuts is the kind of story meant to be adapted to the screen, and I can already envisage a comfort watch coming our way. The book has all the soft parts of some recent favourite books: the musical landscape similar to Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six, the coming-of-age sentiment of Lily King’s Writers and Lovers, the second chance trope like Elissa Sussman’s Funny You Should Ask, the complicated dynamic of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, and Zoe’s existence in the trio reminiscent of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Deep Cuts is more than just a love letter to the early 2000s music scene. It’s about the songs and the production as much as it is about the subcultures spawned by that music, the obsessions and coming-of-age experiences of those who found solace in music while living through world-changing events, from 9/11 to the recession. The only constant? Music as a means of self-expression, an escape that envelopes you even as you stand at the edge of the world.

I listened to this audiobook out of curiosity, and overall, it was a good experience. The story has a calm pace and really captures that early 2000s atmosphere — the music references, the blogs, the messaging... it gave me a bit of nostalgia.

The relationship between Percy and Joe has chemistry, and there are some genuinely well-done moments between them, especially when they’re creating music together. I liked that dynamic and how emotions blend into the creative process.

That said, there were times when I felt the story lost its way a little or went in circles. It wasn’t the kind of book that had me hooked from start to finish, but I never felt like giving up on it either. Percy is an interesting character, though at times I felt a bit detached from her.

The narration helped a lot — it felt like listening to a real person, with all the contradictions and insecurities that come with life.

In the end, I’m glad I listened to it. It’s not a new favourite, but it gave me things to think about and had some lovely moments.

Brilliant! I loved this book.
The music references were so good, and I loved the way this author writes.
Really interested in what comes next from this author.

Thank you for my copy!

An excellent read. I found myself full invested in this story. The author has an incredible way with just getting the right words and having the correct impact. A must read.

A cross between Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and a history of cool 2000s music. I loved Percy and this is my ideal type of romance - one with another strong topic running through. ❤️

A great story of two characters in a ‘will-they-won’t-they’ storyline. I loved the music references which is what made the story unique. Thanks for the early read.