I don’t have a ton to say about this other than I liked it, and the vibe checked out. The story was layered, the characters morally ambiguous, the ending a beginning.

The Rachel Incident is a beautifully written story about a woman named Rachel learning her way in the world. It focuses on her friendship with her gay best friend, James, and their struggles with finding love and understanding life's challenges. When I first started this book, I thought this would be a fun and light book, but this was much more than that. The story gives an intimate view of Rachel’s life. I had to double-check to make sure this book was not about a real-life person because the story was written in such a personal manner with a first-person point of view. While reading the story, we get a first-hand intimate look at Rachel’s happy moments, her heartbreaks, and the trauma she endured. This coming of age story will leave a lasting impression even days after finishing reading the book.

Thank you to NetGallery and to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for giving me a copy of the book.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue is an excellent, coming of age literary fiction read. Set in Ireland, this story incorporates details about current events in the country in a thoughtful way to enrich the story and accurately reflects how external factors (like the economy and local laws) impact people's lives and decisions. Excellent character development fleshes out this story, which is essential because many of the plot points are seemingly minor thoughts or decisions that add up to a fuller picture throughout the course of the novel. Even as the characters make frustrating decisions, it's clear why they make them because of the character development. This is a subtle story as you move through it but makes for a satisfying read at the end of the novel. Highly recommended to fans of literary fiction. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of The Rachel Incident in exchange for my honest review.

The first twist in this book had me stunned. I kept a pen nearby to mark all my favorite passages, both the humorous and relatable. Caroline O’Donoghue is proving to be a strong writer in a variety of genres.

3.75

Setting: Ireland
Rep: queer side character(s)

This is listed in the LGBT category on here and on Netgalley, which is why I requested it. Unfortunately, the protagonist is straight, and side characters being gay doesn't make a book part of the LGBT category in my opinion. However, despite that bit of misleadingness, I did enjoy this book. It's a weird one. It's slow; at times it drags. The characters are messy. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting it to be.

A relatable late-teens/early-twenties coming of age story with a less relatable but even more fascinating look at what it means to do so in Ireland. Peppered with these delicious little nuggets of prose that so perfectly captured feelings and experiences. I loved the spotlight effect of the structure, which sets up the narrative as being recalled by any older Rachel. We have prominent characters other than Rachel, but only hear about their thoughts and feelings when Rachel is paying attention to them; it captured the self-involvement of early adulthood, and highlighted the stark abruptness of the realizations that unfold.

Unfortunately, this book was a miss for me. While I understand it was meant to be a coming of age story of two friends working through their own sexual awakenings while living together, the story itself just didn't resonate with me, which resulted in me having a hard time getting through the novel. It took me over a month to finish a story that would typically take me about a week. Also, sometimes the jumps between present and past just felt very abrupt to me, further disrupting me while reading.

A thank you to Knopf for a free copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Character Driven + Coming-of-Age + Academia + Found Family

What I loved:
✨Rachel: she is flawed, broken, and struggling to find her place in life. I love her complicated self. I also love her platonic relationship with James, her gay roommate. Together, they provide a bit of levity within Rachel’s struggles.
✨A twist on dark academia: Rachel crushes on her professor. I love how James and Rachel scheme ways Rachel can “get together” with her professor. Unfortunately, not all goes according to plan.
✨Narration: Tara Flynn’s Irish accent fully immerses you in Ireland. She rounds out Rachel's character by providing not only angst in those early years but also humor as Rachel laughs at herself and her situations.

Thanks, @that.one for buddy reading. I loved dissecting Rachel, the sexual revolution in Ireland during the 2000s, and financial and healthcare difficulties for women during this time period (I don’t want to give anything away). Highly recommend this one!!!

In a Nutshell: Go into this with the right expectations. It is a literary fiction with shades of bildungsroman, and not exactly a “brilliantly funny” general fiction as the blurb calls it. Handles its plot and characters pretty well.

Story Synopsis:
When Rachel Murray was working at a bookstore as a nineteen-year-old college student, she met James Devlin, a self-declared heterosexual though Rachel suspects otherwise. They bond as colleagues and soon become roommates. Navigating the poor economy and broken hearts together, Rachel and James are not just best friends but each other’s emotional support system.
When Rachel falls in love with her married English professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her make a plan to lure him to their bookstore with a reading of his nonfiction work. However, what happens next changes their equation and lays the foundation for the ‘Rachel incident’ and its aftermath.
The story is set in the city of Cork, and comes to us through the first person voice of Rachel, who is narrating to us about the incidents of a decade ago retrospectively.

I started reading this novel expecting a funny story about friends and lovers, because the very first sentence of the blurb makes a grand declaration on these lines. While there is a lot of focus on friendship and romantic relationships, the story is not funny, though I must also accept that what counts as humour is a matter of individual preference. I found this book a semi-serious one, focussing on choices, instincts, and decisions. It also highlights how things beyond our control, such as the economy, governmental policies, and other people’s mistaken assumptions, end up affecting our lives. Once I changed my track and read this novel as a work of literary fiction, I enjoyed it much better..

This is not a novel where there are great conflicts or twists. As I kept reading, the percentage indicator on my Kindle kept going up, but I still felt like nothing much had happened in the plot. But at the end of the book, I realised that a whole lot happened and passed me by subtly. I suppose this is still better than reading a book where too much happens but the percentage completed stat moves up at a snail’s pace.

The title becomes clear only towards the end of the novel. So for a long time, I kept wondering what the ‘Rachel incident’ referred to. But once the reference is explained, the whole title-plot combo makes a lot of sense.

As the lead who is just about twenty, Rachel is a complicated character. Impetuous, wild, and naïve, she acts her age and takes decisions from her heart than from her head. As she is a sheltered young adult who takes some idiotic decisions, it is tough for us to like her. If you are someone who needs to like their characters, this story is a tricky one because Rachel does quite a lot of things to ensure that you are irked by rather than enamoured of her.

What helps matters somewhat is the choice of retrospective narration. Rachel herself recounts her life story to us ten years after the “Rachel incident.” At thirty-two, she is slightly more mature and her account includes her opinion on the events that occurred as well as some amount of foreshadowing. That said, I didn’t understand whom she was narrating her story to because it doesn’t look like this was her journal or a book. She also breaks the fourth wall multiple times and speaks to us readers directly. A bit of clarity on this point would have helped.

The other key characters – James Devlin the gay roommate (he’s the kind of friend everyone would love to have!), James Carey the unreliable boyfriend, Fred Byrnes the professor with secrets, and Deenie the professor’s wife and a successful woman in her own right – are all interesting. As we get the story for Rachel’s first person perspective, all we know of these characters is what Rachel chooses to tell us. This gives us a limited idea of their personality, and is a minor hurdle in getting to understand them better. James Devlin’s arc would have been especially interesting to explore with his closet homosexuality and his screenwriting dreams. Then again, the book is titled ‘The Rachel Incident’, so it is obvious that we are meant to focus on only Rachel’s pov.

The plot uses Ireland quite effectively in its narrative. I enjoy books that don’t only mention settings but actually incorporate them in the storyline. Irish habits, local places and hangouts, the financial crisis, their opinion on England, their rigid policies against abortion – all find mention in the story.

The ending works excellently for this story, as it is not a typical HEA. There are some loose ends that are left with just enough clues for us to guess at what might happen next to most characters. I loved the ending, but I can see that it won’t satisfy every reader.

I see many reviews referring this novel to Sally Rooney fans, probably because both Rooney and O’Donoghue are Irish, and both focus on broken young adults trying to survive if not thrive in Ireland. But the one book of Sally Rooney that I read didn’t work for me at all, while this was a relative winner. So I’d recommend this even if you aren’t a Sally Rooney fan. And hey, O’Donoghue, unlike Rooney, uses quotation marks – definitely a huge plus.

If you read between the lines of my feedback so far, you will understand that there was a lot of realignment of expectations involved in my reading of this character-oriented novel. Adjusting my focus took some time, but once I did, the book clicked nicely for me. I could have done with fewer cuss words, but this is an individual choice and not really a shortcoming of the novel itself.

Recommended to literary fiction readers interested in a quirky story with complicated characters and realistic life problems. Though not exactly a coming-of-age novel, it works well as one because of Rachel’s life choices.

3.75 stars.

My thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Rachel Incident”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

I really liked this Irish coming of age novel set in Ireland and England.. It was funny, well-developed, bittersweet, and made me think. The characters are not of my generation, so it was interesting to see what younger folks are going through, particularly with the war on women's rights in the US. Great read. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author.

A charming, witty, effervescent coming of age story that follows Rachel and James - two young people just trying to navigate life and love. If you enjoy Sally Rooney or Dolly Alderton, this book will win you over. Rachel is a millennial female, finding her way and you will not want to put this one down!

“I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously.”

Potentially my second favorite read of the year after A Little Life. This is such a well-contained novel that also finds a way to be about more than its story. Incredibly tight and thoughtful writing by O'Donaghue.

This is one of those books that showed me elements of myself on the page, and those are always intense moments for me. To be ~seen~. In a lot of ways I related to Rachel in her early 20's - too reliant on her close friends, too reliant on her daydream obsessions, forever concerned about the economy and losing everything. I will say I don't have the same chaotic streak Rachel has, so at least I have that going for me.

I love how this book not only has flawed characters, but it has flawed characters making choices that fit perfectly for their characters. I love how the issues and solutions here are so simple but yet so amorphous?? Because that's how life feels to me.

I love how The Rachel Incident is about growing up and how that's a simultaneous good and bad thing. It was great seeing these characters reach their 30's and see how their understanding of themselves changed.

This book also has a delightfully sharp and wicked sense of humor to balance out the Great Recession doom we all remember.

L000000000ooved Caroline O'Donaghue is a rockstar.

Rachel is finishing her college degree in English and works at a bookstore. She meets James, who becomes her best friend. They share an apartment and lean on each other as they are learning their way in the world. The book was funny, serious and and tackled a few very hard issues. At times the book moved a bit slowly and the Irish slang was difficult to follow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for allowing me to read this ARC which will be released June 27, 2023.

I really wanted to love this. I love a good 20s-woman-comes-of-age-amid-the-mundanity-of-everyday-shit story. However, by about 40% in, I just wasn't interested enough to continue. I think maybe the book was missing some charm, or humor, in order to keep me intrigued and reading and wanting to know what happens to Rachel, but every time I put the book down, I felt like I'd be fine to not pick it up again, which is not a great feeling. I do like O'Donoghue's writing a lot, though. Unfortunately, this one didn't quite vibe with me, though I am grateful to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I loved this book SO much! It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s relatable. If you’re a fan of Sally Rooney, you’ll love it.. I enjoyed getting to know these characters and following along in their day to day lives, and then, there’s a certain point in the book, when it almost turns into a thriller, it’s so heart-stopping. Loved it!

This book was amazing in the most soul-breaking way - I often struggled with books that are character studies because I feel like the way the main character is written is hyperbolic and unbelievable. Their main good and bad traits are done in ways that make them a caricature of what they would actually be in real life in order to make sense of some of their choices. Rachel is not like this at all. I felt like I was reading an autobiography or memoir. The plot was entirely gripping and so was Rachel's character development. I was also pleasantly unsatisfied with the ending. Part of me wishes we could dive deeper into where James ends up, but I'm also content leaving that up to my imagination. That is due to the quality of O'Donoghue's writing. Can't wait to read more of their work!

Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC of this text! My thoughts are completely my own and independent of my receipt of an ARC.

A coming of age story following Rachel as she reflects back on her early 20s and the insecurity, chaos, and bad decisions that comes with being that age. Rachel and her best friend and emotional partner, a gay man named James, are navigating money struggles, toxic relationships, and finding themselves.

This is the perfect book for those feeling lost while coming into adulthood. I felt so connected to Rachel by the end because I related so much to her trying to figure out what she wants in life and how to get there. I absolutely loved the complexities of her relationship with James - they are the definition of platonic soulmates. I was in tears by the end and spent a long time reflecting.

I loved the Rachel Incident. This was one of the best contemporary novels I’ve read all year. I do have to say it was not quite what I expected, but I loved how it all came together at the end. I would definitely recommend to anyone that’s a fan of adult contemporary and especially if you are a fan of books set in the UK.

The Rachel Incident should be the talker of the summer! It will likely land in my top 10 of the year, for its whip-smart writing, sort of likable characters, and compelling plot that jumps between 20-somethings and 40-somethings. Great great read.

I was ambivalent while reading The Rachel Incident and continue to be a week after finishing it.. it was interesting to read a book set in urban Ireland although the slang was sometimes difficult to decipher. Rachel, the narrator, was a mass of contradictions and not the most sympathetic of characters. She began her story unfocused and undisciplined. She seemed to make every situation she found herself in worse by her own choices. The other man characters — her BFF roommate, her boyfriend, her professor and his wife — were well drawn and interesting but frankly Rachel’s interactions with them were often unpleasant and left the reader unsatisfied..
The heart of the story, the secret relationship between James the roommate and Rachel’s professor and Rachel’s relationship to each, comes to a flashpoint mid book and was the best part of the story. Unfortunately, the author uses two contrived happenings to alter the trajectory of the story and left me feeling disappointed. The final third of the book seemed much too tidy to fit with the messiness of the earlier part of the story.
I guess considering all aspects of this book, I wouldn’t recommend it.