Set in Cork, Ireland during the global recession in and around 2008, this novel examines young adulthood, deep friendships, first love and the mistakes that come with being in your twenties. Rachel and her best friend, James, live in basic squalor while piecing together part time jobs and becoming way too involved with a middle age professor and his wife. This is a solidly written book with a propulsive plot and characters that you can’t help care about, even as they are not making good life decisions. I foresee this being a big book this summer and can’t wait to read what others have to say about it.

I received a digital Advanced Review Copy of this book from the Publisher via NetGalley.

Brilliantly written, the Rachel Incident follows Rachel, a self supporting college student, and her best friend James, an aspiring screenwriter, as they navigate their twenties together in a small Irish town.

DNF for me. I really wanted to get into this, but the timeline switching was not very clear. The main character felt whiny and when there are at least 10 f-bombs on one page I'm not going to keep trying. This tells me that the author does not know how to make use of the English language. Thank you for considering me for an ARC, but I just could not keep with it.

Thanks to NetGalley for this advanced copy.

An easy-read, coming of age that touches on some deeper topics, while still remaining humorous. Good representation throughout. Not the sort of book I’d usually pick up but I enjoyed following Rachel and James’s relationship through their early 20s.

TW - abortion

A chance encounter with a college acquaintance leads Rachel, a London-based journalist in her early 30s, to reminisce about her senior year at university in Cork, Ireland. College-aged Rachel is a mess. She and her best friend, James, live in a crappy apartment and work together at a bookstore. When Rachel's hot, married, professor visits the store and mentions that he has a new scholarly book coming out, Rachel and James concoct a plan for Rachel to start an affair with him. Instead, it's James who sleeps with him and Rachel begins a relationship with a commitment-phobic hook-up and gets a job as a supremely underpaid intern to the same professor's wife.

I can predict some resistance to this heroine. As I said, she is a mess, a slovenly, directionless mess--she admits it herself. As someone who also drifted around a college town for a few months immediately after getting an English degree, I found her very relatable. There are lessons here about not taking people for granted and for not assuming you know what other people are going through. There's a backdrop of economic uncertainty in Ireland circa 2008. It's mentioned in passing, and it directly relates to Rachel's employment and family circumstances, however, in true 20-something spirit, she notices but it doesn't make much of a dent given all her other, more personal, dramas.

Five stars. Thanks to #NetGalley for graciously providing the the ARC; the opinions are my own.

I loved this book so much. The first half had me highlighting so much that made me laugh out loud and the second half had my heart aching. Such a perfect book.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue so beautifully captures what feels like to be in your early 20s. Or at least it felt true to life specifically for me and my early 20s experience, for better or worse. The close friendships you hold on to for dear life when your thrust into world without having a clue what you’re doing. The messy first “real adult relationship” that you also cling on to for dear life even when they may bring out the worst in you. The scrambling to find a job when the economy f*cking sucks. Again, certainly not everyone’s experience in their post-college early 20s, but I connected to Rachel SO strongly.

The writing flows in such a way that it felt like an easy read even though it deals with heavier topics. The characters feel so real and are so well developed. O’Donoghue not only paints a picture of Rachel and James during their early 20s, but she also shows us how they grow and change as they get older and gain more real-life experience.

I just loved this book so much,

I feel so lucky to keep getting such great books off of NetGalley! Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I headed into this book entirely blind and as a newcomer to Caroline O’Donoghue’s work and I enjoyed this book so much!

Present-day adult Rachel takes the reader on a journey back through her adolescent years which took place in Cork, Ireland amidst the recession. I’m a big fan of a coming-of-age story and this one is up there with the best ones - there is a mixture of humour, love, heartbreak, juicy secrets and everything in between. I adored the meeting of Rachel and James and the growth of their friendship. The dialogue, particularly between those two, was witty and made me actually laugh which is rare! There were also some very tender and sensitive subjects explored which were written with care but were thought-provoking.

There are so many different strands to this story, all loosely connected in some way, and I enjoyed the way the author presented the different versions of love that a human can experience: through parents, best friends, lovers and partners.

Despite the at times heavier topics, the writing was light and breezy and this is just one of those books that is incredibly easy to read and you’re sort of shocked when you reach the end because you didn’t realise how much you’d already read.

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor & Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Meet Rachel. She’s twenty-one, in platonic love with her roommate, James, who is also a co-worker. She’s also a bit starry-eyed over her professor, Dr. Byrne, who has a wife.

Rachel and James work in a bookshop and Rachel has discovered that the good Dr. Byrne has written a book. She meets his wife at a book signing she has organized and she seems lovely. It’s only later that the weirdness begins.

This book follows Rachel over the course of a year. She falls for another James, the Byrnes are acting strangely and the secret they share is about to blow up.

This is pretty much every twenty-something past. We are a messy bunch at that age. Trying to figure out where we fit in and who we want to continue living with. It’s all trial and error and this reminds me of all of that.

NetGalley/ June 22, 2023, Knopf

The Rachel Incident. Yes there is an incident and it likely won’t be what you expect when diving into this lovely debut. It’s a character-driven coming of age novel with a steady yet laid-back European pace. A sprinkling of surprises keep you reading for more. By the end you will fall in love with James and Rachel and you’ll want to enjoy a wine dinner with them. If you ever had to get creative to scrape by in college, enjoyed drunken nights with your best friend or fell deeply in love with someone you really shouldn’t have, you will find yourself in this book. I know I did. The emotions presented were real - all the hilarious, heartwarming and heartbreaking ones.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As you might have deduced, this book is about the Rachel incident. A boy and a girl decide to share a rundown house with no heat in Ireland. The story takes place in a year they share the house. Girl is enraptured by the boy…boy proclaim

A great story about learning to navigate life as a new adult. It's funny, thoughtful, insightful, and full of love. Reading this feels like you crawled inside Rachel's head and saw her life through her eyes. It doesn't feel like a book and I just love that.

I devoured this book in two ling sittings within a 24-hour time span, which is quite a feat when you have a rambunctious three year old son. Reading this book took me back to my early twenties when I was fresh out of college and navigating the impossible job market of the late aughts and early 2010s.

This gave me Sally Rooney vibes, and not because both authors are Irish. The protagonist. Rachel, is in her early 20s and harboring a crush on her attractive English professor. When things don’t go exactly as planned, Rachel is left to pick up the pieces after a massive misunderstanding.

5/5 stars

Look for a Books Are Magical podcast episode featuring this novel on its publication date.

This book is love personified. Get ready to fall in deep. A story about a young woman who is finding her way, in life, in love, in her world that has been tilted in unexpected ways.

I’m telling you this one is so spectacular, such a brilliant, funny, warm, love on love story that you’re going to appreciate everything about it. We meet lovable Rachel from Cork who is finishing up University while crushing hard on her literature professor who isn’t the least bit focused on her. She dreams of becoming a writer while working in a bookshop where she meets her best friend, James, and we have the privilege of watching as their lives gain momentum the moment, they come up with a clever idea involving pre-orders of a book to, well, game the system. Their minds, so much alike. What follows is often fun, frequent miscommunication, heartache, and certainly love underneath it all.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. I’ve got the sweetest hangover, I don’t wanna get over, ‘cause if there’s a cure for this, I don’t want it. I can’t wait to read everything Ms. O’Donoghue has written and writes in the future.

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Knopf, and the author for an ARC of this lovely book in exchange for my honest review.

Rachel works at a bookstore and quickly becomes best friends with her coworker, James. They move in together and are navigating through the perils of their twenties. She develops a crush on a married professor from school, Dr. Byrne, and that is most certainly a complication she’s not sure how to work through. She also starts dating someone (also named James). You can definitely feel the chaos of this decade of life and can empathize with Rachel. It reads from a very real place and I enjoyed the writing style of the author. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this advanced copy.

The Rachel Incident is a book about transitioning from young adult life as a student in your twenties to full fledged adulthood. Rachel, James, and Carey were all sympathetic characters whom you root for as they navigate the pitfalls of life in your early twenties. You want to see them figure things out and make it in the adult world. The story starts in Ireland in 2010. There is an abortion side story which was interesting as it was still illegal in Ireland at that time. All in all, it was a good read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this advance reader copy in exchange for a fair review. This review appears immediately on Goodreads.
Not a normal grab for me, as I don't tend to reach for coming of age stories. Rachel recounts her end-of-college, early adulthood years - one that we are all grateful we got through without social media, cell phones, and cameras everywhere. I remember the uncertainty, the co-dependency with gay friends, and certainly the poor job market and financial insecurity of my own coming of age.
The writing is funny and clever and well paced. Its easy to see how readers would laugh, cry, and cringe through the antics and decisions of these players.
While its not my personal style of the book, I could very well appreciate it and would recommend it to certain readers. Not a book club book.
TW's - gay relationships, affairs, abortion, lots of language and graphic imagery, sexual content. You know, most everything that comes with your 20's.
3*

I really enjoyed this book, though it's outside of my normal genre. It manages to be both a light and a deep read, with real emotion and tough situations mixed with some laughs and an overall likeable protagonist. The story centers on Rachel and dives into her relationship with her roommate, her boyfriend, her unrequited love interest, and others around her.

Rachel felt very real, as did the dynamics between characters. I felt like I knew her and was part of her life. Her relationship with James also hit just the right note. She experiences real growth throughout the book but in a realistic and often humorous way.

I am going back to my regular psychological thriller reads now, but glad that I added this one in and will definitely read other books by this author. Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The cover is amazing and caught my eye.
I started reading this ad the Pump Rules scandal took over the internet so I started a little irked by the early the storyline. But about 20 percent in, the actual story comes through and rescued my attention. Over all the story is well written and in a voice that you feel like a friend is actually telling you her life story. Even though the book is slow moving, I am enjoying the story.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House!

Wow what a story! I’m so glad I was approved for this arc! So many blurred lines with relationships. What a read! I was literally blown away and shocked at some points. I truly love when you think a story is going one way and then it just goes so differently.