I really loved this book. Rachel and James share such a relatable and honest dynamic that it is hard to feel that you're not secretly a third wheel in their journey. This book has intense drama, heartbreak, and tackles complex themes of gender, women's rights and healthcare, and homophobia. However, these ideas are presented so casually that they effortlessly build as the story progresses, and always presented with a light-hearted, witty humor. Thank you to Knopf for an advanced copy of this book!

Sometimes the promotional blurbs you read about a book prepare you for what you are about to read. They set the stage so you can decide if this is a book that you indeed want to read or not. But sometimes they don’t and sometimes they mislead you. I had no preconceived idea about this book before I turned the first page because I failed to read the blurb. And….. no, I am not going to enlighten you. I picked this book up completely in the dark, and I’m happy I did. I mean I’m happy that I picked it up but equally happy that I knew nothing about the plot. This book is an onion that needs to be unpeeled. I had no expectations, and I had no idea where the story was going to lead me but it was such an enlightening and fun journey!
Relationships are complicated. Relationships are messy. This story is at its core, a story about relationships of many dimensions and many types. It’s about friendship and love but not really a romance. It’s about coming to terms with your life amidst twists and turns over which you have limited control.These are imperfect characters but alas, I loved them all.

Many years ago when I was 19 or 20 I had an intense crush on a college professors who taught Shakespeare. How embarrassing to look back on that now but it did help me relate to the main character in this book. I loved it when Rachel admitted that in hindsight, she missed clues and failed to understand nuances of conversations. I could totally relate. Let’s face it. When you are 20 or 21 you think you get it but you don’t and that can be excruciatingly embarrassing. Life is a journey and there are lots of pitfalls.
I loved that all the characters here were imperfect but totally relatable. There are no villains here just a cast of characters trying to figure it out and find their way..
And I did love -love -love the “Will and Grace” dimension. This is a book I will reread. These are characters that will stay with me.
Read it. It’s funny but not the cliched “laugh out loud” kind.. Just amusing because it’s real.
I loved it.

5 stars! This was a beautifully told coming of age story that completely captivated me. I was immediately immersed in the character's world and her friendships. I thought the use of the alternating timelines was expertly done. The hints at the story to come throughout did even more to deepen my interest. I appreciated that most of the characters were very well developed and their decisions (good and bad) made sense. I loved this story and will be exploring more of this authors work because of it.

This felt like a really good time capsule of the late aughts/early 2010s. I found all the characters compelling, but if pressed I couldn't really explain what this book was about.

Although I am not a millennial, this book grabbed me from the beginning. Who hasn’t been a mess at some point in their 20’s?? First love anguish, adulting, job hopping, being poor, etc. Rachel’s experiences include other challenges, but she survives with the love of her best friend and occasionally her family. Watching her grow up and emerge, albeit with some scars, makes this book addictive. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

🍷 REVIEW 🍷

AKA baby’s first Ebook experience!

I feel as if I’ve surpassed an important bookstagrammer milestone. That’s right, I created a NetGalley account. And my TBR could not be more displeased. 😅

Before I created my account, all I knew about NetGalley was that you could maybe request new books before they were available to the public in exchange for honest reviews? & that sounded pretty damn cool. Well, it just so happens that I hit the jackpot when I got approved for THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O’Donoghue. This novel comes out Jun 26, 2023, is published by Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor…and I absolutely loved it.

If there’s one thing about me, it’s that I’m a sucker for novels about two best friends creating an insular world made up of inside jokes and late nights out, hating all the same people & sharing all their secrets.

Twenty-somethings Rachel and James meet when James gets a job at the bookstore Rachel works at, and become fast friends. When an illicit relationship between James and Rachel’s married English professor develops, it becomes a catalyst for change within their friendship and lives.

Fans of Sally Rooney will likely really love this one as Caroline is also an Irish author and has that distinctively Irish voice. Many parts read almost like bits from a comedy show & I found myself snorting at the dry humor & Rachel’s messy way of fumbling through life. I also found myself annotating so many sections & unexpectedly touched by the end of the novel. Ultimately this is a novel about love- whether platonic or romantic, it’s about loyalty and having someone there who is willing to help you pick up the pieces, even when they’re shattered themselves. This was a 5-star read for me, & now my only question for you is-which cover do you like best?! I’m partial to the first with the teacups. 😍

Thank you to @netgalley for this amazing ebook.

#TheRachelIncident #NetGalley #contemporaryfiction #queerlove #goodbooks #booklover #bookrecommendations #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #irishfiction #booktok #thebibliophiles

Strong 4

Gabrielle Zevin's approach to plot crossed with Dolly Aldterton's ability to create high stakes from the mundane.
All three of these authors seems to share the same project of subverting the contemporary (stealthily literary) coming of age romance genre. They write books that follow the beats of your traditional love story, but substitute the central "love story" with a great friendship. They extend uncommon detail and nuance to the work and rewards of friendship.

This one's witty without being pretentious and steeped in the culture of Cork, Ireland without being alienating. Framing device was initially confusing but soon resolved. Loved how conflict (props are due here for a genuinely explosive dinner party) was built up in this novel without resorting to miscommunication tropes, or the creation of a villain.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. The comparisons to books like Other People is apt here. This was an engaging and very human coming of age story that traced the ramifications of the past far into the future, in ways that were both poignant and uplifting.

Truly amazing! I read this book over two days and wanted to finish it faster yet never wanted the story to end.

Rachel, of the Rachel Incident, shares the origin of her love stories with the Jameses - her best friend/roommate and her lover.

As Rachel struggle with college, falling in love for the first time, and job applications, she finds herself directionless. With the support of her best friend, who brings his own drama to their interwoven lives, Rachel learns how to navigate adulthood.

Told through flashbacks that are extremely well done, the author provides Rachel’s current day perspective on her actions and thoughts in her early 20s.

ARC provided via NetGalley

I enjoyed this book. Very character driven. I kept turning the pages to see what was going to happen with these friends.

Marvelous! Rachel and James seem to me to be fully formed, realistic characters who develop through this whole story set mostly in Cork Ireland. Caroline O’Donoghue has crafted #therachelincident with wit and empathy and helps us understand friendship, loyalty, coming of agetrials, and the some of the issues surrounding reproductive rights, both for women and men. Thanks go to #netgalley and #virago for this arc to read and review. All opinions are my own.

I loved this book. I loved it so, so much. I related SO strongly to Rachel, I felt like I was her and we were living the story together.

I laughed aloud (cackled) at several points, I gritted my teeth in distress, I nodded along sagely like we were actual besties and she was telling me her deepest secrets.

This is a fantastic coming of age story that every late twenties to mid thirties adult will be able to relate to, and I will 100% be buying a physical copy when it's released.

(I have posted it on Goodreads but it wont let me link it! Under Olivia Turner)

I adored the novel and the writing of Caroline. It was an exciting narrative that provided unexpected character development. I really loved the way Caroline developed her story with present day and past, it didnt feel forced but rather like you're just in a room chatting with a friend hearing about her wild youth. It was a lovely story of Rachel finding her strength and doing hard things, while making some choices that as a 3rd party gut you but also can understand. Loved this read, thank you so much for letting me advance read. Cant wait to recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for this advance readers copy, in exchange for an honest review. As The Rachel Incident opens, we learn that the narrator is telling us a story from years ago. In present day, she is a semi-successful journalist and pregnant and we come to learn that the story will be about a sequence of events that eventually lead her to that present state. These events are instigated by her newfound relationship with James, her best friend, her married professor, and ultimately how their lives all become intertwined.

It took a little time for this story to take shape for me and to get a sense of where we were headed. But, despite this, I still very much enjoyed this book in large part because of the writing. Within the first 50 pages, I had many highlights and lines that just struck me as both well written and so finely able to capture seemingly mundane emotions/experiences. The characters is this book experience love, loss, loneliness, shame, etc. and while I’ve never personally endured the characters situations, I could still very much empathize with how it must have felt.

By the midway point in the book, I was very invested in the story and our characters. I was also happy with how the book ended, having both a heartwarming and bittersweet undertone to it. Per the editors note at the start of the book, she read or rather consumed this book within a sitting or two and had to share it out as soon as she read it— I had the same experience and will be eager to discuss with other readers once the book is published.

I’d recommend this book to literary fictions fans and Sally Rooney fans, as this book reminded me a great deal of hers.

A beautiful coming of age novel with some good laugh out loud moments. I love quirky characters, which Rachel certainly is.

As someone named Rachel, I have been waiting for someone to write a book with this title for a long time! It made me glad I didn't grow up in Catholic, conservative Ireland because so much of the stress in the book was because of their surroundings and culture. It was a lot of fun but with a sad, realistic core.

Beautifully written with laugh out loud lines, I enjoyed this coming of age story set in Cork 2010 during the Irish recession. Rachel is an awkward uni student navigating work, school, relationships, love, being a woman with restricted reproductive rights, and finding her place in the world.

The Rachel Incident takes its sweet time developing the important relationships within it and takes even longer to convince you why you should care about them. Regardless, Rachel had a very strong voice— it was easy to relate to her feelings of codependency and not wanting to seem like a burden, feeling like everyone is judging you for something you didn’t even do— and the prose was compelling enough to keep me reading. I never found myself bored and was always looking forward to seeing what would happen next. In the end, I enjoyed it much more than I did when I started reading it.

On a note that could be construed as nitpicky, I don’t particularly care about a straight character’s point of view on gay culture. Further, the author stated on her Instagram that she wanted to write a book about loving men; I don’t feel like this is a concept the literature world lacks. I would even go as far to say it’s something the lit world is overrun with. What the author says on her own time doesn’t technically have anything to do with the contents of the book itself, but if someone, like me, doesn’t care too much for books that are mostly about men, their experience with this book may vary.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue.

Oh wow, this is a novel that packs a punch, I will not soon forget it!

Rachel is a lost twenty one year old woman, she is obsessed with her gay roommate James, and infatuated with her professor Dr. Byrne. And after a while of naively pursuing him, she finally finds herself tangled up in his life, but not in any way she ever could have imagined.

To try to recap any more than that would not do it justice. One of the things that (IMO) make a book great is when I feel like I'm practically a part of the story. When the character does something reckless and I can shake my head and think "classic Rachel." When I can really see their rundown apartment filled with things that they never bought for themselves. And when I can feel their absolute despair and helplessness of the situation that they never asked for, but definitely caused.

I was so enthralled with this story, EVEN THOUGH the characters were usually acting poorly and you wanted to shake them. This was still a deeply endearing story full of gasp out loud moments, love, friendship, and plenty of redemption.

When Emily Reardon, a book publicist for Knopf, reached out and recommended, “The Rachel Incident,” I was intrigued. The editor’s note at the beginning of the book stated that the editor stayed up all night reading this book and postponed her Thanksgiving dinner to finish it. I read it in a day too. And if you know, you know if I read a book in a day, it’s good.

Easy to read, the book is about Rachel and her James’. James, her gay best friend, and later James- better known as “Carey,” her sometimes boyfriend. Set in Cork and later England, the story introduces Rachel pregnant and post grad, but not certain how many years. She reflects back on her time at university and as the editor points out in her note, “coming of age in an economic recession.” The intricacies of the relationships – both romantic and friendship bled through the pages. Rachel seems lost and is easily swept into James’ (her bestfriend’s) orbit after meeting him at the bookshop where they both work. She anchors herself to him, and the story rides their rollercoaster friendship. James, at first is adamant about being straight, and only after falling for a forbidden lover, comes out and is able to be his most authentic self. The story is about identity and finding yourself in those vulnerable years when you are constantly judged by what you do, who you spend time with and what trajectory your life is on. Caroline O’Donoghue’s writing brought life to these characters I was happy to spend a day with. I read a quote once that said something along the lines of the saddest part of finishing a book is not knowing what those characters are doing anymore, you don’t know what they’re eating for breakfast or where they live. This is true of the friends I’m leaving after finishing “The Rachel Incident,” though I’m sure I’ll be thinking of them for a long time.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this title early. And special thanks to Emily Reardon of Knopf for sending this one to my inbox. Super thanks to Caroline O’Donoghue for giving me these characters and this story, a highlight for my weekend, and a book that will certainly be found on my shelves once it’s published in June.