4.5 stars
I’m not an Irish millennial but I think that some experiences transcend. I lost myself a bit in this story of Rachel and her relationship with the two James’ in her life. Secrets and lies and miscommunications usually don’t work for me but, somehow, Rachel’s insightful and sarcastic comments made it all work. I find myself wanting to say this is a feel good novel but that’s not quite right. It’s a book full of such realized characters that they felt real and stay with you long after you finish reading. Definitely recommend!
*Thanks to Knopf and NetGalley for the advance review copy.

Set in Cork, Ireland during the recession, this one is all about friends, lovers, and figuring out your future.

Rachel works at a bookstore and befriends co-worker James. They eventually become roommates and best of friends. While Rachel is finishing her English degree, the Irish economy is in shambles.

A crush on her professor leads Rachel and James to concoct an event at the bookstore for his new book. The crush goes nowhere but Rachel is given an internship by her professor’s wife who works in publishing.

A romance with another man named James breaks her heart, she’s let go from the bookstore, and ostracized from the Cork community. Rachel moves to London and tries to begin her life all over.

While Rachel wasn’t always a likable character, she did finally grow at the end of the book. I enjoyed this different sort of book, but it’s back to thrillers for me!

The Rachel Incident has all of my favorite things: lifelong friendship, unrequited love, and twists I never saw coming. It’s a satisfying story of how Rachel finds her way and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Love and friendship can both be very complicated and this books captures that in such a perfect way. Highly recommend. Now I just need all my friends to read it so we can discuss.

I read this in less than 24 hours; I couldn't put it down. It had so many quiet moments and wasn't necessarily a big, dramatic story, but it was told so thoughtfully and with such emotion that I felt for all the characters involved, on all sides of each situation. I only wish I knew what happened next!

Completely engrossing. Found myself sucked into this book and read it in one sitting in an afternoon. The story is compelling and hard to put down. Somehow the author has woven some characters with despicable traits at times that the reader still likes and trusts the word of. Everything just works well.

This is a lovely coming of age novel that follows Rachel, a university student who works at a bookstore and falls in love with James. The novel is good but not great and definitely more for the younger audience but I definitely think it’s much better than books such a Normal People.

Although this is being billed as akin to a Sally Rooney novel, for me it is much closer to something by Dolly Alderton or Caitlin Moran. Whoever your chosen comparative author, it is a series of warm, ruthlessly honest, and pithy vignettes from a year in the life of a university student set in Cork in 2010.

Rachel Murray is adrift: her English degree is going to be of little use, her middle class parents have been sideswiped by the financial crisis, and her relationship with her boyfriend is dull and in a cul de sac. Then she meets James Devlin and they instantly become best friends, and she develops a crush on one of her professors.

Told from the perspective of Rachel ten years in the future, it’s a year in which Rachel goes through many trials: personal, social, and professional. She makes the sort of bad choices we all did in our early twenties and they have the sort of bad consequences we all suffered, but we can also see the embryo of the adult which she will become.

At its heart, this is a book about the sort of wild and completely absorbing friendship that is only really possible in that liminal stage of life before jobs, relationships, and responsibilities take hold. Highly recommended if you want to remember what your youth was really like.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Even though this was not my typical type of read, I did end up enjoying it. It reminded me of how discouraging it was for young people coming of age at that time. I have read quite a few novels with dual timelines, but this one left me confused a time or two about when an incident being described actually took place. Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for an advance copy to read and review.

A very quick and enjoyable read, but a little bit one dimensional. A good book for a beach read, but many of the characters were a but stereotypical--i.e James as the "Gay Best Friend", the professor as a closeted gay man stuck in a marriage. I found Rachel a bit winey through most of the book, but found her less annoying by the end of the book. Not my favorite book of the year, but still a quick read and good for summer.

LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. A twenty-something with a messy, unsettled life in Ireland and her gay, male best friend. So sweet, so poignant, so FUNNY. I enjoyed every minute spent with Caroline O’Donoghue’s characters.

Fantastic portrait of coming-of-age. I loved this and was surprised by the freshness of it. Rachel is a likable character despite the time the reader spends watching her make mistakes. I loved that her and James met working at a bookstore and their instant friendship was believable and heartfelt.

I did feel that the ending should have been different. It was a little too tidy for me. But otherwise this was a gem and I highly recommend it to readers who like reading great character and relationship development.

Clever, funny take on growing up Irish in the early '10s. Eponymous Rachel paying her own way through uni since her parents' assets have declined in a recession. She gets a flat with bookstore coworker, James, a witty, closeted gay, and they proceed to go on a wild tear through Cork. Oh, to be young...

Both fall in love with men who are bad news. The best friends are there for each other during the ups and downs during one epic year.

Only much later in life do we see the denouement of these relationships.

Love, trauma, poverty, class, naivety, omissions, and truths weave together in this ode to friendships and how we learn who we are as young adults.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue comes with a lot of hype, everywhere I turn it’s being advertised as THE book of the season that is unputdownable. I will simply say…they are right. It was a 5 star read for me. It took about 25% for me to really get into it and care - I honestly thought it was a mystery before actually cracking it open so I think I was spending more time wondering why this wasn’t a thriller than anything about the book itself.

We meet Rachel and James right away in the future and we quickly flash back to the past, when they are in their late teens in a small town in Ireland trying to figure it out. It being adulthood and life, nothing major. While attending university Rachel develops a big crush on her professor, Fred Byrne, who becomes an integral part of her life with James and the incident in question.

The writing was fantastic and had me laughing out loud at times. There were a few points where I would reference something cultural in my head only to read on a few more words and find it on the page. The best example I have is when a character is talking about having Lupus and I thought of the contestant on ANTM, and then it was right there.

LOVED! You will smile, cringe, laugh, and think your way through this one.

Thank you the NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the ARC. The Rachel Incident is out now!

A story about friends, lovers, a financial crisis and a young woman desperately searching for something. Much of the drama centers around Rachel, her best friend James and his affair with her married professor. The dialogue was darkly funny and the cringe worthy situations Rachel finds herself truly made me uncomfortable.

I was not a fan of the beginning of the book, and actually contemplated not finishing. Yet I am a sucker for drama, so I stuck it out to the conclusion. I enjoyed the bond and devotion between Rachel and James. I found myself sympathizing with Rachel struggles in life.

I didn't dislike story but I didn't love it either.

Thank you Knopf for the complimentary copy.

What a fantastic novel about friendship, love, complex relationships and navigating life as a twenty-something. I thoroughly enjoyed O'Donoghue's writing style--humorous, witty, sharp. It's overall an unputdownable novel, and one that when you aren't reading, you'll be thinking about.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

"Perhaps it's because so many people claim Irishness that we keep putting our private jokes on higher and higher shelves, so you have to ask a member of staff to get them down for you." Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

There are times in each of our lives that we'd prefer not to recall. Immature, embarrassing, finding ourselves ... Call it what you wish, we've all been there. I cringed for Rachel as she navigated those years. Decisions made out of emotion and all the justifying .. Yes, I've been there.

What I adored about this story was the candor, the description passages of rain, smells, clouded vision and bad decisions. And of course the friendship. Who doesn't recall that tried and true relationship of Rachel and James - one that consists on shared inexperience, lack of money and most of all a soft place to land. Someone you can tell anything to - well almost anything. This story is full of youth, friendship, love, loss, betrayal and forgiveness.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley and the publisher, Alfred A. Knopf for the opportunity to read the digital ARC, The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue.

Rachel Murray is a young Irish woman getting ready to graduate from college in 2010 with a degree in English literature. She works in a bookstore and lives with her best friend James. Rachel tells her story of the incident from her current day (2022) perspective, which shaped her life.

I enjoyed the glimpses of Rachel’s current life as we get the details of her life in 2010. The characters are realistic and engaging and the story is paced well, with a satisfying ending.

This was a well written book but honestly it just wasn’t for me. I appreciated the angle that looked at the women’s reproductive health care concerns and inability to access abortion. Such an important topic and honestly, here in the US, highly relevant in the last year since the decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Aside from that though, this book was hard for to relate to. The female MC came across as selfish and whiny but I think that has more to do with generational differences as I’m far past 20 and I grew up in a different time then the setting of this book.

I really really enjoyed The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue. It was a very smart, witty, and complicated coming-of-age story that had the added layer of social commentary around abortion.

We bounced back and forth a bit around timelines which at times could be a little confusing but ultimately was in good service of the story.

Rachel is in university in Ireland, and stumbling through a bit. She works at a bookstore, but isn't really sure what she wants to do with her life. She meets her coworker James and immediately is drawn to him. They become inseparable best friends - moving in together and deeply intertwining their lives.

They are young, a bit lost, poor, and searching for direction and love in all the wrong places. They are also grappling with the Irish recession and social issues that deeply impact them both.

I don't want to give too many details because going in blind made it all the more enjoyable. Rachel and James are complicated and complex but watching them stumble and grow and evolve is a story that will stay with me for some time.

I'll post this review on goodreads, retail sites and my bookstagram @scottonreads and twitter @sarahncotton

What makes The Rachel Incident a unique novel is that the plot is centered on one, life changing incident. Rachel Murray is a young college student living in Cork, Ireland and working in a book store there. She meets her soon to be life long best friend, James Devlin at work. Rachel and James become roommates and inseperable platonic friends. Rachel suspects James is gay and this is confirmed when she finds him in a compromising situation with her married English professor. This same professor is Rachel's crush. O'Donoghue's characters are identifiable and interesting. The plot is easy to follow as Rachel falls in love and tries to build a career that allows her to use her English degree. Both Rachel and James become part of the professor's world. If you are looking for that "something different" to read this summer, The Rachel Incident is the book for you.