Review: Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley

Read: Jan. 2025 "Did he feel whorey up there?" ⭐️ 4.7/5

Read: Jan. 2025

"Did he feel whorey up there?"

⭐️ 4.7/5

*Disclaimer: Thank you to Crown Publishing for sending me an advance reader's copy of Deep Cuts! Deep Cuts releases on Tues. Feb 25th, 2025.

To begin, I wrote most of my notes and thoughts for this book on scraps and tidbits of paper—which graduated to any blank canvas nearby that was willing to be scrawled upon. Right now, they're scattered around my laptop in what looks like clutter but is, to me, deeply essential and wonderful. Much like this book. And much like the clutter, the following review will be a collection of scattered thoughts pieced together as a love letter to the author and anyone else who enjoys this book. <3

The review will also contain spoilers, so...be vigilant hence forth, my friends.

I received an advance reader's edition of Deep Cuts via Crown Publishing, who I cannot thank enough for placing this book in my hands before the general pop. It makes me feel both special and important and slightly pretentious—that my thoughts had time to form and come together before hordes of people who just don't get it get ahold of this book. I can already see the Goodreads comments now, droning on in complete opposition of what my review is going to be.

That said, let's get into it.

What, at first glance, reads like a well-written and highly-regarded fan fiction (like, this would do numbers on Tumblr in any fandom for any beloved fictional boy) smooths into a glaringly real and accurate depiction of being in your 20s—and moreover, being a woman in your 20s.

Being in college and then graduating from college, and still meandering between the two great ideas of "this is what I'm supposed to be doing," and "what the fuck am I doing?"—which is a feeling that has lasted from 21 to 23, and I'm fairly certain will continue for quite some time. (Question for the author: has it gone away?)

Interestingly, the moment I knew this would be at least a 3 star review for me came when the main character, Percy regales her walk home post I-just-lost-my-virginity-in-a-back-seat. When the world's always told her she's supposed to feel different in this moment, and instead, all she feels is the very real and literal, physical pain of intercourse. Like, who gives a fuck that I'm not a virgin anymore, that hurt!

Where most authors would've cheaply afforded the act to Percy and Joe (who you have to be rooting for by this point), Brickley gave us accuracy: the plain-painted truth of being 22 and just wanting to have sex, and not really caring who with. What's more "I'm 20-something and stupid" than that? And it's real. If you have some Notebook-level romantic story about your first time, I'm giving you a gold sticker for your forehead—but the majority of us have horror stories packed into a Reddit thread, or at the very least something we cringe or laugh about, and thank God is far enough in the past that most of it is now a blur.

As it develops, this book and the story at the center of it makes itself known for Creatives. I'm affording this a proper title and deigning both Percy and Joe "Creatives."

It's easy to feel the buzz and burn and ache of wanting to create. The ache festers a little when that creation becomes tangible (in whatever form that may mean). And then it congeals and clumps like spoiled milk when the creation is in front of you, ready to be breathed into, ready to be consumed—but it isn't. At least, not by anyone except yourself.

To take it a step further that not everyone reaches, when the creation is then breathed, consumed (like Joe's band, Caroline's single that swept the music charts until the zeitgeist inevitably found issue in its popularity, as it so often does), then the ache begins to gather like mold behind cabinetry.

It's there, always. Always growing, always spreading, always pestering its owner who does not know how to fix it.

There are few characters that embody this ache as well as Percy. She's practically the ache itself. She's Joe's ache, she's her own ache. She stands in her own way for 80% of the book. Yet, this is not a fault against Brickley—in fact, this was another tick in my notebook for Brickley's writing. Instead of affording a cheap, "I'm gonna go get what I want no matter the cost," storyline to Percy, we actually live through her prolonged journey in finding her sense of self. And it likely irritated you, as it did me, because we can relate!

Additionally, the ache that both Joe and Percy feel when it comes to this creation that they manifest together and separately at different times throughout their story, leads one to wonder if it's the ache that's pulling them together, or if it truly is love as we (and they) are led to believe. Are they in love? Or are they just feeling that magnetic pull of "artnerships," in which the relationship between a pair comes only from the art they create together.

As we've seen, that ache can pulse to the same beat as love—and more importantly, lust.

(Although, there are lines scattered throughout the book that also inch me toward the "love" avenue. When Joe tells Percy to come over so he can "suffer" her....I had to post it on Instagram. Many of you saw it, many of you loved it. It's only the tip of the iceberg with this book.)

I'd like to briefly discuss the trauma plot line. Without giving too much away, there's an instance around halfway through the book in which Percy suffers a traumatic experience with another student in grad school. Reading through this experience—though brief and lacking those tacky, gory details that the "dark romance" realm (Jesus, I can say so much about that bullshit) loves to drag out—came with a full-body tightness. As a part of that alarmingly high percentage of women who've experienced this genre of trauma, I immediately understood the shift in Percy's character—and once more, I'd like to commend Brickley for this visceral and obvious, yet somehow subtle shift.

The people around you become intolerable. The things you used to love, the things you used to do, the places you used to go—it all seems like a chore. The person who used to do these things, journey these places...they're gone. In some way, no matter the severity of the situation, you are altered. Your state of mind and being, your way of thinking, it all tilts. There is an immediate need to shed the old skin that was violated and slip into a new one.

With Percy, it's never discussed or obviously explained, but it's there. It's there for anyone who's stood in her shoes. Brickley exemplifies this beautifully through Percy's silent and impatient snaps, the repetition of the constant and grounding, but also haunting detail of said trauma. The constant reminder of the song that was playing during this encounter. The scents of that night.

There's a rigidity to Percy's character all of a sudden post-incident. I suppose I just wanted to touch on it to say: I understand. And, Miss. Holly Brickley, thank you for helping me feel seen.

Now, for the actual music articles/blogs Percy writes. Do I appreciate the depth of these articles? Sure. Did I start skimming when they went past 2 pages? Yes. I think I understood their necessity to an extent, serving as plot development and character-tell without straight-up info-dumping or holding our hands and walking us through a blatant "get to know me," move. But it became excessive at times. I suppose, thinking about it now, that's almost the point. Percy's passion is glaring, and while, damn I love Joni Mitchell and "A Case of You," I sort of wanted it to end.

(On the topic of writing, the portion during grad school when Percy attends workshop classes was hilarious. Brickley nailed the pretentious commentary of these flavors of classes. "What's at stake here?" "I'm just not feeling the stake." "What if the story started here?" God, I almost miss the rage it fueled me with.)

Inevitably, the longer it took for Percy and Joe to "get together," and the more the pair avoided each other/denied the "love" still simmering (back burner or not!) between them, the more I wanted to shake Percy like goddamn salad dressing. You stupid idiot! He's standing there, belting a song you wrote together, weeping into the damn microphone...and you're still questioning if he cares about you? Ugh, millennials. The "playing it cool," shtick.

Though, I do love this idea of Percy and Joe dedicating their lives to each other in their own separate, and sometimes silent ways. Percy writing the blog post about him, Joe dropping in tidbits of Percy lore in his songs. Yet, both equally pretending they're not doing this.

However, that brings me to the very end.

*SPOILER*

So, Joe and Percy end up together. To be specific, they agree to move in together after a rushed who-knows-how-many-years-have-gone-by sexploit. Like, Zoe (the bff and former-gf-now-lesbian) leaves, and Joe and Percy turn and just decide "eh, why not?" Which I can respect! But...you're telling me I endured this snail's pace slow-burn for them to decide within the span of five minutes that they're going to be together?

I almost feel (personal emotion aside), that these people would not end up together in real life. Percy is far too envious of Joe's success, and Joe is far too emotionally immature to find Percy's own quiet talent anything other than a threat (he also needs to go to therapy for his dead mom). I think they'd spend their entire relationship trying to out-do each other.

It is this ending in particular that knocked my rating down from a full 5. I almost wanted her to give us the unsatisfying ending—because it would've been the accurate one. Though, I am a sucker for an unhappy ending. (None of my work has a happy ending, fyi. Don't expect it.)

*SPOILER ENDS*

There's one last thing I'd like to say about Deep Cuts.

What I appreciate most about the story is this idea of "hopeless hope" (coining that term, don't steal it!)—essentially, what being a 20-something-year-old woman feels like. Hell, even being a 30-something-year-old-woman (30 is the new 20!).

There's hope for the future, yet hopelessness in the hope for this future.

"Oh, I'm so excited—but why should I be excited? Everything is shit. The world is going to shit. I can't find a job, I'll never get to move out on my own, I'll never get where I want in my career." There's a naive hope that is immediately shut down by the hopelessness of that hope. It's sort of nature's yin and yang. For every light there must be dark.

For something to feel truly fulfilling, there must be something willing to take it away. That's life. Holly Brickley gave us a little slice of a fictional character's life that mirrors so many of our own. It was a lovely way to spend a couple days forgetting about the state of our own lives.

Alas, that concludes my review of Deep Cuts, a 4.7 forever in my heart. <3