I wanted to love The Rachel Incident, but ultimately this book fell a bit flat for me. I couldn’t connect with the characters in the way I wanted. The writing was really sharp and I really liked that this book was set in Cork! I look forward to reading more from this author!

While this was a quick and engaging read, I have to say the first three-quarters of the book just didn't sit well with me. I didn't find any of the characters very endearing and I felt like nothing really happened. With that said, the ending redeemed the book for me. Who knows...others will likely have a very different opinion.

When the books started, I really thought I would love it. Rachel is a student that has a crush on one of her professors. She works in a book shop with her best friend, James, and the create a book event to lure the professor in and it turns out he is far more interested in James.

The rest of the book is mostly the relationship between James & Rachel and how they navigate together the relationships with significant others. They are entwined in each other's lives for better or worse. A situation comes up where Rachel even resorts to extortion and I really did not like her after that. I know that she was in a desperate situation, but it really did not sit right with me. It could be that I was already not a fan of hers. However, I did really like James and kind of didn't understand why he stayed such a close friend to Rachel.

Sometimes the events in life that seem destructive and devastating can turn out to set you on your intended path. Rachel’s journey seems to be filled with odd choices that aren’t moving her towards the career and personal life. But she loves the life she has chosen with her best friend James. He is the person she loves most and the one with whom she shares every detail of her daily life and often her decisions. James will never be the focus of her sexual life since he gay but that doesn’t change her love for their life together. Rachel has a crush on one of her professors and she plans book signing event for the professor at the bookstore where she and James work. But that event sets a cascade of circumstances that turns both Rachel’s and James’ lives in a new trajectory that will try their friendship and their journeys. Twists and turns of friendships, lovers, betrayals and crushing loss. The book you cannot put down until you know what becomes of them all.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue is a highly recommended coming-of-age novel about friendship and love set in Cork, Ireland.

The novel opens up in 2022 with Rachel pregnant and then quickly jumps back in time to 2009 when college student Rachel Murray first met James Devlin. Rachel and James both work at a bookstore and it is love and the start of an intense friendship at first sight. The two soon become roommates and as they experience the nightlife around Cork while the threat of a financial crisis emerges. When Rachel admits her crush on her married professor Dr. Fred Byrne, the two conspire to set up a reading of his book at the bookstore. Instead of Rachel trying to flirt with the professor, the event results in the unexpected entanglement of James and Dr. Byrne. This relationship results in complications between Rachel and James with the professor and his wife. Adding to the turmoil is Rachel's boyfriend, James Carey.

This is an in-depth character study, with a focus on young adult friendships continuing into adulthood. Neither Rachel nor James are particularly lovable characters. They can be humorous, engaging, and dramatic. They are both in the midst of growing into becoming the adults they will become while trying to navigate their current drinking and late night parties with living expenses and planning for some sort of future career. Really, this is about mistakes you make when you are young and revisiting them as an adult.

The first half of the narrative essentially captures the delayed adulthood of these characters, as Rachel looks back on these years. The development of the plot starts out rather slow and doesn't pick up until later in the novel. That is also when the characters begin to display more depth. 3.5 rounded up
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Knopf Doubleday via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

This was a fun book dealing with love and friendship. The book is filled with humor and I really liked it!

Description:
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

My thoughts:
James is hilarious - what a great character! The characters draw you into their world and become real. I enjoyed the friendship between Rachel and James. Their love lives seemed part real and part fantasy as their relationships played out. A fun book to read and an interesting plot.

Thanks to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on June 27, 2023.

A thoroughly captivating homage to platonic love and all of its potential. Rachel and James felt so real, I felt like I was there in their little ant-filled apartment with them. I love this journey of self-discovery and the way Rachel is allowed to be imperfect by the narrative. Brilliant story

Special thanks to Netgalley and Knopf for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book switches times in the main character's life which made the book a bit confusing to get into. The trouble getting into the book was a reoccurrence for me throughout the whole novel and definitely affected my final review. As a whole Rachel was kind of annoying to me, she had obviously grown in her "radical" though as she aged, but it never really seemed to be anything that had substance to it. In addition, I was not a fan of how the gay character was treated (and never really given a chance to grow) and how bisexuality was portrayed.

I personally have been having trouble with this genre lately (imperfect young woman starting her life), so I would say to take my rating and review with a grain of salt.

I struggled with this one. the timeline switching was hard to keep track of and there was nothing about the characters that were particularly exciting or loveable. there was one moment where my jaw dropped but that seemed to have been the only moment of excitement throughout the entire thing… and that was fairly close to the start. I enjoyed the authors writing style but overall, it just felt like nothing really happened.

thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Knopf for the digital ARC in an exchange for an honest review.

I half expected to be bored after reading some of the 1 & 2 star reviews (which I very rarely do and have no idea why I did in this case) but I originally picked this up because it takes place in Ireland mostly and any book in Ireland is a book I'd want to read. I have absolutely no regrets. While I may not have completely loved some of the characters (including at times Rachel herself), I really enjoyed how the author wrote this story with dual timelines even if they weren't completely clear. It kept the mystery of who she is married to and having a child with throughout the story. It brought up many different difficulties of the times in Ireland and many different, difficult relationships issues that more than one of us have had to deal with in our pasts. This was my first story by this author and I would absolutely, gladly read her again. Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this story.

I just love a good coming of age contemporary story.

This had absolutely everything that I love. A main character that’s so real and flawed and just learning about life. A great background context about the recession in Ireland and how that affects our MC’s life and decisions. A love story that’s not perfect at all but that at the end it turns out okay, because they’re adults now and learned from all the shitty stuff they had to go through. A best friend relationship that just consumes your whole heart and life and that is the definition of soul mates and true friendship in a very messed up world where you don’t know who to trust, you just know they’ll be there.

It’s my first book from this author but it most definitely won’t be my last. I absolutely adored it and I know you’ll love it too. It comes out next week so make sure to buy it.

“And so now, everyone I love is called James.”

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf for the advance copy in exchange of an honest review.

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

This book was beautifully written and captures the messiness and angst of being in your early twenties. Caught between being a young person making irresponsible decisions and having fun, while desperately wanting to find your path and feel like a grown up.

We follow Rachel as she finishes her English degree in Ireland in 2010 when the economy is terrible and jobs are scare. She lives with her best friend James who is on his own journey of coming out. They both have significant love interests, one of which makes for a very messy situation leading up to the incident the book is titled after. Most of the book takes place around 2010, with some scenes in the almost-present day of 2022.

The characters are flawed and endearing and while at times it seems like not much is happening, bigger topics are touched on. Not only is this about growing up and finding yourself, but there's themes of sexuality, class differences, and access to reproductive healthcare. If you enjoy coming-of-age stories and character driven novels, give this a try!

Many thanks to Knopf for the digital review copy of this book, which comes out on June 27th.

I tore through The Rachel Incident, taking it down in two days’ time. It is, as the blurb promised, quite funny in a clever, Millenial sort of way. It earns a spot on the lists of books which made me laugh often enough that my husband asked what was so funny. It’s also a messy, complicated story about imperfect people living their lives.

The drama alone might pull you through, but the great writing is icing on the cake. Even though I was frustrated with the characters a lot of the time, they felt so real and human that I had to forgive their flaws.

If I had to complain about this book in any way, it’s that I occasionally found the narrative structure a bit confusing. The story is told by a present day Rachel, reflecting back on her younger years and the titular Rachel Incident. However, sometimes the blur between what’s happening in her present life and her past was a bit confusing.

I very much enjoyed The Rachel Incident, even if most of the plot was relatively predictable in spite of all the drama. It’s a story well told, with humor and honesty, that left me satisfied as a reader. I think fans of Really Good, Actually would enjoy this one for the similar “bit of a mess” vibes.

Reads more like a memoir than a novel. A coming of age examination of the turbulence of the times, the decisions that are made — sometimes for the most specious of unreflected reasons, the inappropriate loves, the mistakes, the lies told to ourselves and others, and just the plain old mishmash of life as one pretends to adulthood, develops friendships and relationships whilst floundering about unmoored. It’s not often that fiction gets people so right that it feels like your own life.

The Rachel Incident is a funny and engaging coming of age story. Throughout the book, we follow an ordinary 21 year old Irish girl through a tumultuous year in her life and all those tangled in it. The Rachel Incident highlights the realities many young Irish women face due to the lack of access to reproductive care. This book was an incredibly raw story that perfectly highlighted the realities of living in a small Irish city, graduating from university during a recession, and the complexities of power imbalances in relationships. O’Donoghue delivered a book perfect for lovers of Salley Rooney, but who are interested in less pretentious characters.

The Rachel Incident is one of my favorite reads so far this year and received an easy five star rating. I will recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a messy, but relatable coming of age story.

Thank you Netgalley for the Advance Copy.

I absolutely adored this book. Rachel's character was so relatable - not always likeable and certainly cringey at times, but mostly because I could recognize the not-so-great parts of my 20 year old self in her. Fortunately, Rachel's voice is much snarkier and full of dry wit than mine was at that age - making for great reading, I loved the relationships and found myself rooting for each character throughout. I also really loved the glimpses of present day Rachel - it was fun sort of knowing where the story wound up while still enjoying the ride. One of my favorite books of 2023 so far!

Ahem…this was SO SO fun! I am happy that I was given a chance to read this. It was entertaining and a great summer read. The writing was well done and clear, it was easy to follow (which is what we want in a summer story). Thank you netgalley for the earc.

Rachel is fresh off a break up, working in a bookstore, trying to finish her degree when she meets James. The connection is instant and deep as only friendships in your 20’s can be. It’s the early 2000’s in Cork, Ireland where jobs are disappearing, the economy tanking, and women don’t have reproductive health rights. As James comes to terms with his sexuality, Rachel takes on a publishing internship. Inevitably these relationships cross over, boundaries obliterated.

When the book opens Rachel is married, pregnant, and a journalist. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, so we know she figures her life out between ‘here and there’. Like reading the last chapter of a book first, knowing a character lives makes witnessing the journey no less painful. It’s easy to pass this off as a coming of age novel (and it is). It’s incredibly slow to get going and for me didn’t hit its stride until the halfway mark. The characters can be unlikable and exasperating, but this misses the big themes. O’Donoghue has swung for the fences and I think this is where the real strength is and she hits her mark. This is a story of unbalanced power in relationships, subtle and overt. It’s a look at what happens when women don’t have close, safe and legal access to reproductive health care. It’s a story about women getting thrown under the bus by men to clean up their messes. As I was talking about this with my book bestie we were incredulous “Why must women clean up the messes?!”.

Thank you to Knopf and Caroline O’Donoghue for the advance copy via Netgalley.

This book is just beautiful -- funny, refreshing, honest, and melancholy at the same time. I know I will think about it a lot and the intricate world that it weaved. Not that it was a different reality but the characters, the location, the story and the moment all feel so real. If you ever wanted to be a writer or if you ever had a quarter-life chrisis, I recommend this book. I also definitely recommend this book and this author if you like literary fiction and beautiful writing. I know I will re-read this book.

The Rachel Incident comes out next week on June 27, 2023, you can purchase HERE! You will love this book!

It was still half an hour until closing time, so the footpath was scattered with groups of girls who were either crying or getting sick.

Thank you to NetGalley, author Caroline O'Donoghue, and Knopf for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for my honest opinion!

I was so drawn to this book because my name is Rachel, and I'm a sucker for books with my name in them! Thankfully, it was right up my alley and exactly the type of book I like to read! The Rachel Incident is a comical book with a lot of heart and surprisingly a lot of depth. Although I am not like this Rachel at all, I found that I was really invested in her as a character and was rooting for her the entire time. I enjoy Irish humor, and I thought O'Donoghue did a fantastic job of writing actually funny scenarios and characters. The friendship between Rachel and James was my favorite part, as it was extremely heart-warming. Having these close friendships is such an important part of coming-of-age as young adults both in college and right after, and I though the love that was present through them was such a beautiful thing. I also though the relationship between Carey and Rachel was enjoyable to read about and played an interesting dynamic to the affair between James and Dr. Byrne. As someone who graduated in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, I could relate so much to the uncertain feelings that they were going through trying to find their place in the world. My biggest complaint is I thought the timeline jumps were a little unnecessary, and I found myself confused when they were occurring. They weren't clearly marked, and I don't think they added enough to the story as a whole to be interwoven. I also would have liked to see more of James, as I felt he was an extremely compelling character. Overall, I'm really excited to read more of O'Donoghue's work now, and I enjoyed this read!