The Rachel Incident is a satisfying, often funny, look at power with the friendship between a young college student and her gay best friend. This novel looks back to the start of their friendship and how a relationship with a college professor shaped and shifted each of these young people and their relationship to each other. This novel is getting compared to the novels of Sally Rooney for both the Irish setting and the focus on relationships and power. While I see Rooney fans enjoying this novel, the thread of humor lends itself well to readers who may not enjoy Rooney’s style. This novel is highly readable, and I enjoyed how there was such focus on this platonic love between Rachel and James. The novel is structures as a looking back with glimpses of the present day. While I can appreciate how this decision adds some tension to the question of how this situation plays out, I often felt those future glimpses distracting. While a scene late in the book was served well by this decision, it came up so infrequently that the jumps to the present sometimes felt disorienting. Overall, an enjoyable, well crafted novel that leaves me excited for future novels from O’Donoghue and thrilled to see it has been optioned for adaptation, Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for access to the eARC!

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf for the advanced copy of this book!

I will say it took me a bit to find my rhythm with this book. I felt a little all over the place, but was immediately sucked in by O'Donoghue's writing style and wit. Rachel and James' relationship absolutely sucked me. I was laughing at their ridiculous banter while also cringing at some of their less than ideal decision making skills. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by this read and will definitely be picking up a physical copy!

I loved The Rachel Incident! O'Donoghue's writing is witty and makes you laugh out loud. I got so invested in these characters' lives- this book will stay with me for a long time! This is perfect for fans of character-driven stories about messy relationships.

So, this was such a strange read to me. Why? Because I wanted to DNF it, but absolutely could not. I knew something good was going to happen, whether it be in the book, or in myself by the time I got to the end.

The writing was compelling. The story was interesting, touched on a LOT of things that were happening in Ireland in the early 2000's. And mentioned the famine quite often as well, for a bit of throwback history. Not in a funny way, but in a way that amused me, just because of the character that kept bringing it up.

In the end, I thought this book was good. Was it amazing for me? No. Would I read more from this author, absolutely yes. I'm not sure if it was the characters that didn't appeal to me too much, or how parts of the story weren't detailed enough. Something was just not for me, but I finished it, and am glad I did.

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Rachel Incident. Still, I loved this messy novel that perfectly captures the overwhelming emotions that 20-somethings experience within friendships and romantic relationships. This book showed how important it is to have a close friendship where you are able to love, grieve, and experience life together. Rachel was very endearing, even though she did have a knack for making bad decisions.

Caroline O’Donoughue has written a novel about a young college student, Rachel, and her gay live-in friend James. Rachel has a crush on one of her married college professors, but he is more interested in James than Rachel. And the story devolves from there.
I think that this may be a generational issue: I found the book sophomoric to a fault. The characters were all so ego-centric that they lost my interest early on. The book blurb talked of sparkling humor—I did not find that humor. I found sad characters, without direction, bumbling through life.
The redeeming part of the story is the ending where Rachel and her friends have finally grown up. Themes in the book include deception, homosexuality, and abortion.
My thanks to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor for an advanced copy of this book. My opinions are my own.

We meet thirty-something year old Rachel at a Soho pub where she's covering a television show for the newspaper she writes for, covering Irish ex-pat events. Somebody at the pub recognizes her from their university days in Cork and brings up the Victorian literature class they had together, taught by a Dr. Byrne, who the classmate conveys, is in a coma. This sets Rachel off, and all she wants to do is get in touch with her best friend James to relay the news. 

We go back in time to when Rachel and James meet. They're working at a bookstore together, and they're in their early twenties. They become the best of friends and move in together. Rachel's got a crush on the very married Dr. Byrne. Where the story goes from there completely ran over any and all of my expectations.  

O'Donoghue's writing deserves all the accolades. Every sentence is a nugget. There are asides that illustrate the setting - one in particular about how cold their apartment was. In relaying the story of a coach breaking down on the way back from a geyser in Iceland that "...splashed everyone, and the splash was so happily received that it felt like a version of Sea World for people who read the New York Times on their phone" where "the water stuck to our skin and froze there, as we waited and waited...The whole time I stamped my feet and ate my frigid packed lunch and thought: But is this as cold as January in Shandon Street? No." The buildup to that bit of information is earned and very funny. The book is full of this wit and snark, with the friendship between James and Rachel taking center stage, a friendship many will relate to. What they experience together, leading up to the "Incident," feels real and earnest. There's compassion and empathy that thirty-something year old Rachel has for twenty-something Rachel, without an ounce of sap. 

Caroline O'Donoghue is drawing some Sally Rooney comparisons. Both writers are from Ireland, in their thirties, writing about twenty-somethings in Ireland. If you squint, I guess that's valid, but pretty generic. The Rachel Incident transcends comparison. The relationships she writes about, the conversations, the in-jokes, the sex, the booze, the squalid apartments, etc....just blew me away. I loved this book with its humor, heart, and unexpected twists.

Put aside a weekend to read this book. It will be worth it. 

My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Publishing for the ARC.

If you ever reflect back on your formative years and cringe, this book is for you. If you have best friends who you lean on through thick and thin, this one’s for you. If the ghosts from young adulthood still visit you occasionally; if you were ever forced to make an impossible decision; or if you still wonder about a certain someone who made a permanent impression on your life, you should read THE RACHEL INCIDENT.

This is the kind of book that grows on you. At first, I thought it was just ok, but when the story hit I was completely entranced. And when I figured out how the title fit in? I was blown away.

I highly recommend this one!

Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, & Anchor, and the author for an ARC of THE RACHEL INCIDENT.

This is a coming-of-age story I’d describe as ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ meets ‘Adelaide.’ Thank you to @aaknopf & @netgalley for the sneak peek. This is out today!

🇮🇪 I appreciated so much about Rachel’s story. Looking back, I could identify with that ‘lost’ feeling that often comes with being in your early 20’s. Trying to figure out who you want to be, where you want to be, what you want to be. And sometimes, clinging to others and getting caught up in them, because you don’t yet know yourself. I found Rachel’s story, although ugly at times, to be somewhat relatable.

🇮🇪 I also appreciated the social commentary on what was going on around Rachel at the time. The hurdles society put in front of her as a young woman, and on her gay roommate as well.

🇮🇪 What didn’t work for me in this book was a lack of growth. I’m not sure what Rachel learned from her experiences, or if she ever really became a better person than the somewhat self-absorbed, lost person she was in her early 20’s. I would have liked to see a lot more change in her. While I sometimes caught myself wondering when the story would end while I was reading it, I also spent a lot of time processing the story and the characters long after I finished.

🇮🇪 Read this if you like…
- character driven novels
- coming-of-age stories
- challenging the system

🇮🇪 Or if you really loved…
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies
- Adelaide
- Maame

This book invoked a lot of nostalgia in me. It perfectly captures that awkward feeling in your early 20s when you think you know everything, but in reality you know nothing and are just stumbling your way to adulthood. I found a lot of it very funny, especially some of the interactions between James and Rachel. And I found a lot of it poignant in that yearning, pure, candid way of youth. The characters are all complex and feel familiar, and I enjoyed the explorations of the different connections between them.

I was a little conflicted about the structure of the novel. On one hand, I enjoyed the voice of the narrator, and how Rachel was interjecting the wisdom that comes with hindsight on her younger actions. By doing that, O’Donoghue strengthened the message of the story quite a bit. On the other hand, I thought the mechanism for why she was reflecting on it all (what was going on with Frank) was weak, and how that culminated in the final scene lacked punch. I also wanted more James in the present timeline because he felt largely absent.

Other than wishing the present storyline could have been stronger, I really enjoyed this book. If you like strongly character-driven novels, check it out!

My advice for reading The Rachel Incident would be to clear your calendar before you start because you aren't going to want to put it down. The story centers on Rachel and her best friend James as they navigate tricky relationships, job struggles, love, and betrayal. The book has a nostalgic feel to it as it's told in past tense from Rachel's point of view. She looks back on the time in her life as she was graduating from college - times that weren't always happy, but they informed who she became. The characters are flawed, funny, and real. I loved it.

Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor and NetGalley for this ARC.

The Rachel Incident is about friendship, love, and finding your way in your early twenties. Rachel Murray is at the end of her undergraduate degree, she’s working in a bookstore, and she is just trying to get by as best as she can. While Rachel grew up in a professional family, the financial crisis in Ireland has seen her family go through some difficult times, resulting in her having to work while in school and living a more meager lifestyle.

One bright spot in Rachel’s life is her co-worker, James Devlin. He is full of personality, charm, and wit, and they become fast friends. In fact, they become the best of friends, and soon after, roommates. While James claims to be heterosexual, there really was no doubt in Rachel’s mind that he wasn’t, but Ireland had left many gay people closeted.

O’Donoghue portrayed these characters as just normal folks, living their lives, socializing, falling in love (and lust), and trying to make ends meet. While they were normal, their escapades sometimes seemed anything but, and this led to a great deal of drama for this duo. Did they always make the best decisions? Absolutely not. Did I shake my head and offer up quiet words of advice to them? Perhaps. Ah, but this is all part of growing up and becoming adults, the mistakes, and the choices that we make are supposed to be learning experiences. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren’t, but in Rachel and James’s cases, I was a happy voyeur on their journey.

In my opinion, this book was a page-turner; I wanted to know what was going to happen to these characters and how they were going to see themselves through some truly rough times. Oh, and they really did have some truly difficult times.

The Rachel Incident was an enjoyable reading experience. It was witty, touching, relevant, and left me feeling completely satisfied. This was my first novel by Caroline O’Donoghue, but now I am looking forward to reading more of her novels.

*4.5 Stars

I devoured Caroline O’Donoghue’s YA fantasy ‘All of our Hidden Gifts’ series. I was intrigued to read her upcoming adult fiction (I know she has two already, I haven’t read them yet!) THE RACHEL INCIDENT. I’m blown away by how I felt about this book. In the beginning, I thought about DNF-ing (twice!!) because I found the characters annoying. This is where O’Donoghue lured me in with her extremely talented writing. I couldn’t pull myself away from this book. So I continued reading and thought it’d be a 3 star read. As the book went on… I was enjoying the messiness of being in your 20s, the chaos of Ireland, the friendship of Rachel and James. Once I reached the ending, it made sense why the whole book played out the way it did. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. An excellent writer, definitely one of my favorites! Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Most of us have stories about our own coming-of-age—about our friendships and relationships and maybe some bad decisions, too. And in The Rachel Incident by author Caroline O’Donoghue, a grown woman finds herself reflecting back on the lessons she learned during her own turbulent 20s.

Full review published on NightsAndWeekends.com and aired on Shelf Discovery

Such a fresh voice! I loved O'Donoghue's YA series All Our Hidden Gifts, and I loved this one just as much! A great, fast-paced summer read!

If you had asked me midway through my read of The Rachel Incident what I thought of if, i would have said it was fine. Not particularly memorable. But somehow, in the second half of the book, I found myself really connecting to the characters and now I’m sad to leave them behind.

The Rachel Incident is told from Rachel’s present-day perspective, looking back to her last year of college when she met and quickly became inseparable with James, her gay BFF. Rachel recounts that year in Cork, when she and James were messy 20-somethings making a pile of bad decisions and nearly self-destructing, but loving each other powerfully though it all.

I’ve seen this book compared to Sally Rooney, Dolly Alderton, and Fleabag, and I actually can see all those comparisons. To me, the commonality goes beyond the surface similarities of messy young people, it goes to the heart of the characters, their friendships, and their determination to find their paths.

Besides Rachel and James’ relationship, I won’t easily forget the romance that came as a surprise to me later in the book. Caroline O’Donoghue writes nuanced, hard-earned growth beautifully, and I just loved where these characters ended up.

This s tory of friendships, unrequited loves and coming of age will keep you entertained from the moment you meet the chaotic, entitled undergraduate student Rachel. We follow Rachel as she meets James, her new colleague and soon to be best friend. They decide to move in together and share stories and secrets as they experience love, heartbreak, loss, and ambition. This has unexpected twists (so no spoilers) with big highs and some crushing emotional blows. Highly and enthusiastically recommend!



Thank you to #NetGalley and Knopf for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Reading some early reviews comparing this book to those of Sally Rooney, I was sort of regretting getting my hands on an early copy. I just don't connect with Ms. Rooney's characters or writing style. Perhaps I'm just not her target demographic. But for those of you 40-something GenXers like me, please do give The Rachel Incident a chance. I just fell in love with Caroline O'Donoghue's portrayal of a hot-mess Irish 20-something who makes so many naive mistakes but who learns and grows and somehow bravely finds her successes in her 30s. While Rooney's characters some off a whiny and why-me, O'Donoghue's characters admit they don't have their crap together and show so much reflective insight as their older selves. I loved the character growth and the little pieces of fate mixed in. This is a coming-of-age story, a starving college student/new adult story, a friendship story, a coming out story, and an Irish story all interwoven within a couple of very messy love stories. the characters were real, faulted, quirky, and funny in their own unique ways... just how I like the people I surround myself to be.

In the end I was all set to give The Rachel Incident a strong 4 or 4.5 star review. But then Caroline O'Donoghue did a thing. She dropped a bomb named Naegleria fowleri. Any book that caters to my love of parasites deserves an extra star! And I never saw it coming.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Knopf for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

“In short, if you’ve ever been young, you will love the Rachel Incident.”

Such a good contemporary fic read!!! Fans of Sally Rooney’s Normal People will love this - has a little less romance and a little more friendship. Rachel moves in with her gay coworker James and together they face job loss, unrequited love, affairs, and everything else that comes with being 21 and living on your own. 💛 THE RACHEL INCIDENT is out tomorrow and has a place on my favorite books of the year. 💗

Review: The Rachel Incident by Caroline O' Donoghue

The Rachel Incident is a story of friendships, love, and finding oneself. This book takes on some extremely important topics with a touch of humor and a dose of reality.

Rachel, who has been brought up in life by her parents without worrying about finances, suddenly has to pay for her college on her own. She finds herself in a new world of roommates, workmates, sexuality, alcohol and simultaneously studying. Her world changes when she gets caught in a situation that is not exactly of her making.

This book is completely character driven, and when I started reading it, I was not sure if I would like it. But after I am done, I find that I really like it. It's a raw portrayal of the world we live in, even though the book itself is set in the early part of the 2000s.

Thank you, Knopf Publishing and Netgalley, for this book.

CW: Alcohol, Miscarriage, Abortion, Infidelity, and Infertility