THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O’Donoghue (pub date Jun 27!)

4.75 STARS

✨ FOR FANS OF: coming of age novels, Dolly Alderton, Sally Rooney, GIRLS, anyone who loves a good “messy gal stumbling through her 20s” book.

⭐️WHAT IT’S ABOUT: a slice of life novel about two Irish 20-year-olds-- Rachel, a uni student in Cork, & James, her closeted gay best friend-- who fumble through complex relationships with adulthood, each other, & the English professor they both become obsessed with. Told in retrospect, an older Rachel explores the tangled web of her relationship with James, Dr. Byrne, Aideen, & Carey to more closely consider a time in their lives that has come to be known as “the Rachel incident.”

⭐️WHAT I LIKED: oh man, reading this book felt like Caroline O’Donoghue crawled into my brain. I binged this in less than 24 hours! the writing is sharp, hilarious, & just plain fun while still hitting on hard topics & deep emotions. Carey was my favorite character, but all of them felt real & distinct. The whole novel was well-balanced & I couldn’t stop laughing out loud.

⭐️WHAT I DIDN’T: Rachel’s relationships with her family felt a bit like a last-minute add & I wish that they had been fleshed out a bit more— some scenes with her family seemed tacked on and unrelated, but maybe that was the point. Mainly, I wanted more time with these characters! I would definitely read another book from Rachel’s perspective on another time in her life.

⭐️OVERALL: a strong contender for one of my favorite reads of 2023. O’Donoghue’s writing style scratches an itch in my brain & I’m excited to read her other works. Special thanks to @aaknopf, @vintageanchorbooks, & @pantheonbooks for the advanced reader copy!

You can find me on @wellredphd for more book reviews!

‼️ Check trigger warnings, as always.

4.5 Thank you to the Publisher and Netgalley for the advanced copy

I had much anticipation going into this book, but the marketing department let me down. Don't get me wrong, this was a fantastic read, but it was different from what it was marketed as. I heard a lot of comparisons to Zevin's Tomorrow, and to read this if you ever had an internship in publishing that didn't pay you. As a young publishing professional trying to make a career as a freelance editor after many an unpaid or underpaid internship, I jumped when this galley was offered to me. Still, this book is not about that, and it's a disservice to say it is. I think one of my favorite quotes in the book sums up the best what this book is really about: "I was paranoid the way only people of my generation are paranoid, that I was about to be publicly derided by an unseen, online mass for ideological crimes committed as a teenager."

The Rachel Incident is now logged into my mind in one of my favorite overly specific genres: Irish women writers writing about relationships, class, and the total collective dissatisfaction in the early 2000s. I know this immodestly brings up Rooney comparisons, but O'Donoghue is standing perfectly on her own with her prose and approach. We follow Rachel, as our narrator, as she stumbles out of college into a 2008 recession in Ireland without any job guidance or prospects besides her intense love (non-romantic) for her gay best friend, James. From the beginning of their friendship, working at a local bookstore, until the end of the book, Rachel's life is centered around their connection. This book is beautiful but not flowery; it discusses the intense qualities of long-lasting friendships and how they are ever-changing, the loyalty that they require, and how for most of your life, you may not realize that you have been the storyteller instead of the main character. I highly recommend this book, and it deserves the hype!

SPOILERS AHEAD

TWs: Homophobia, Physical Violence, Unwanted Pregnancy, Termination/Loss of pregnancy, Adultery, Inappropriate sexual relationship, discussions of drug and alcohol abuse.

From a literary perspective, the thing that most interested me about The Rachel Incident was this unique idea that the story of our lives isn't really ours; at the very end, I was so deeply connected with both Rachel and James I got a smack on the face when I realized that all the writer was trying to show me (at least that's what I think) is how, even in books, the lives of the people around us are constantly affected by a singular central character that binds them. James is this character, not Rachel, and the beauty of the last chapters is that we see Rachel take the blame for many decisions she didn't make simply by her singular loyalty to James and his journey. In the very end, she says, "This is not my story to tell," and yet on the very first page, we are introduced to this text as a book being written by Rachel, a confession of a year in her life that has forever marked her as 'the girl that slept with her professor' and how even years after in a bar in London, now married and pregnant, this is still a label she is attached too. Yet as we soon discover, Rachel is nothing more than the keeper of James' secret. It was refreshing to see a loyal character; as she keeps being attacked, she never once falls into the trope of tearing everything down; she always prioritizes James, even when he doesn't prioritize her. I related deeply to this and was so impressed when I didn't feel like slamming Rachel; she is such a flawed character, but her consistency in her love for James felt so real that I excused Rachel's actions a lot under that premise.

I think what I got from this book was the kind of recognition that adult friendships are very intense too, and that not everyone is a prick to one another all the time; sometimes, we do just simply want to give love freely and realize that we need to let someone go so they can fully reach their potential. I am so used to representations of friendships as either inconsequential or extremely toxic that I saw how Rachel's admiration for James was so easily nurtured without needing to reduce her own story to it. I look forward to reading more from O'Donoghue, and I salute her beautiful nod to the role of the storyteller beyond the main character; it was beautifully executed. I'll leave you with my favorite quote in the entire book, which reflects the writer's and the book's timeliness and thoughtfulness. The text is about the political narrative around abortion in Ireland. It discusses the hurdles many women have endured to safely reach medical care, but that (unintentionally?) reflects this entire story so beautifully "It was bad, but it was familiar, like a fairy story at its most savage and transcribed from the original Danish."

This is the story about being young and in your 20s and the mistakes you make at that age. Rachel and her best friend James live in Cork and work at a bookstore. They’re like any 20-something year olds - a little lost, a lot broke, drinking like one does at 20, and displaying extraordinarily bad judgment, also as one does at 20. It’s a beautiful tribute to friendship and growing up.

You can tell this is from the author of Promising Young Woman, it is another riveting tale of a woman on the brink. Gorgeously and propulsively written, this is incredible.

I expected more given the reviews of this book. There were a few bright spots in the writing and the story was compelling but it was primarily very sad. My overwhelming takeaway was about the cruel way in which the world makes assumptions about women and then those same women are punished for the world's assumptions.

I really, really enjoyed this. Rachel as a character and narrator is so believable. I really felt invested in her story, which is something that can be difficult to achieve with this kind of story. It's not necessarily a story with a big climax, it's more just a reflection on a particular event and all the things that led up to it. Highly recommend.

Rachel lives with her flatmate James, who is her best friend. The two of them have troubles with romantic relationships, trying to make a living during an economic downturn, and figuring out life—they are both in their early twenties at the beginning of the novel.

This is a compelling and original novel about how friendships and romantic relationships and our relationship to ourselves change over time.

NetGalley provided an advance reader copy of this novel, which RELEASES JUNE 2, 2023.

Young life, college graduation, roommates, and friends. Loves, losses, reconnecting. Jobs, moving, living arrangements. This is a nice chronicle of Rachel’s life as a young adult, her subsequent growing up and learning to get on in the world as a real adult. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC.

Ahhhhhh!!!!!! All I can say is I was incredibly enthralled by the characters, Rachel and Deenie in particular. Rachel is extremely flawed, but I found myself seriously relating to her. There are entire sections that I felt were plucked directly from my head. Codependency, for example, was shown so well through her internal thoughts and dialogue between her and james. It was all so incredibly honest.

Again, Rachel did some bad things and none of them are excusable and still, I wanted Rachel to win so badly. I wanted her to get what she wanted. I hated who she hated, loved who she loved, was obsessed with all the same things. I wanted her to seek out petty revenge from everyone who'd ever made her feel small even though it wouldn't be fair. I wanted the (mostly) good people in this story to be bad because that would’ve made loving Rachel so much easier. She was self aware in the most dangerous way, in that she can pinpoint her role in hurting others and feels hopeless about it. At the same time, you can’t deny that she’d been used. And punished. It was pretty heart wrenching to read how she was treated at the graduation, all based on a lie to spare someone else. It just felt so horrible. I don’t know how else to explain it.

Nearing the end, I realized that resolution is what I wanted for everyone. Despite the turmoil Deemie suffered, it was incredibly fulfilling to see how things changed with her. I don't know if I would've coped as healthily as her, so I respect her character so much. Ultimately, I think this book teaches you to cope with people's shitty behavior (even your own!) with empathy and context. Every bad decision we make is to protect ourselves or others. That doesn't make it any better. But it helps us understand why we keep messing up and hurting people. I think that's all we can do.

Apart from plot/characters, the pacing of this was what helped me get through this so quick. I would prepare for a long chapter, only for it to fly by without me noticing. Each chapter, no matter how long, transitioned so smoothly and was easy to breeze through. The last few chapters feel a bit rushed because it skips time so quickly. However, I think the quickness was necessary to get to the last chapter without giving unnecessary detail over a longer span of time.

The writing itself is the most impressive part to me. It was so witty and the 'drama' was so fleshed out. I was invested in every single relationship, in every single slip-up or obstacle. It was also just so versatile. It was devastating and funny and complicated. I've read too many books that are so invested in plot, they forget to say something important in a hard-hitting way. Some people are great at making interesting/unique concepts for stories, some people truly understand the craft of writing. O'Donoghue is great at both and it feels effortless in my opinion.

The endings of chapters were also so so interesting to me. I think landing on 'mundane' images or statements to move forward works really well in stories like this. A really intimate moment cannot end on something explosive or dramatic. It works so well when these moments end on the fineness of tea leaves, on the printed-off email tucked somewhere, on a kiss planted on a neck. Writing poetry is one of my favorite things ever and this is usually my go-to way to end poems. Devastate them with a lasting image that pulls in their senses, something that grounds them.

I love love loved this novel. It was just genuinely refreshing. I also just have this weird urge to cry silently whenever a main character seems to resolve their issues and get closure (maybe because I'm living vicariously through them?). So I did a little bit of crying with this one and that was so satisfying.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue is a beautifully told story of losing and finding oneself. The story revolves around Rachel Murray, a twenty-one-year-old Irish university student who develops close relationships with three men, including her married English professor, Dr. Byrne. Tensions rise when a shocking secret threatens everything they hold dear.

The book has a realistic portrayal of a young woman's experiences and I found myself relating to Rachel often times than I expected. Despite the novel's complex themes of love, friendship, and betrayal, the book is a quick and easy read that will transport you back to the early 2010s. I also appreciate how the author handles sensitive topics with great nuance such as abortion.

Overall, The Rachel Incident is a fascinating young adult drama and I think the writing is superb! I will definitely check out other Caroline O'Donoghue's books and read them ASAP!

I am recommending this book to every early twenty something year old I know who’s struggling with “real life”. This coming of age story really hits home and pulled at my heartstrings. I found myself invested in the characters more than I thought I would be in the end.

I started this book and found myself so engrossed in it before I knew it I was done.
The characters made me feel sad for them and the situations...never have I felt a strong emotion such as this from reading a book before. So intense,detailed and written like a story should be written. Did it make ne sad..yes but I loved every minute of it.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for an early release of this book.

I received this book as an ARC and this is my review. Loved this book! The characters are flawed and interesting and the story takes place in Ireland, London and New York. Everyone has problems and the dark humor in this story highlights the attempts to solve them. I recommend this book to readers who enjoy the day-to-day experiences of the single unemployed and underemployed as they try to fulfill their dreams.

Rather typical coming of age story about a studious, quiet girl who falls in love with an older man and how it affects her and those around her.

It's nothing new but this is so well written that it felt almost like a diary.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read this book in advance.

We meet Rachel, who’s a young Irish girl living near Cork and just finishing her senior year in college with a major in literature. Low on funds, she decides to share an apartment with James, with whom she works part-time at a local bookstore. Even though she has a crush on her middle aged teacher, it turns out that he’s actually attracted to James. Rachel eventually meets another James, but there’s a lot of drama until the resolution. Thank you NetGalley for providing me this ARC.

i can't even say i wish i was exaggerating when i say im rating this six stars because i don't wish i was exaggerating. this book was that good. it deserves it. for all the people that have ever picked up a sally rooney book and just felt let down when they finished it - this is the book for you.

rachel was one of the best unreliable narrators ive ever read, made so much better by the occasional inputs of her older self reflecting on the situations that she found herself in in 2010.

the love that her and james had for each other was so strong but so codependent and toxic towards the end of their time at shandon street. it really was the focal point of this story. i think james's queerness worked so well in this story - the way that he had to go about relationships and love completely differently to her in a way that rachel almost failed to realise until the end, and how that completely shaped the central conflict of the story.

fred and deenie as well. wow. fred was so deeply selfish, trying to have it all at once, and deenie i found to be almost wilfully ignorant but also trying so hard to keep her life together under all the pressures that life brings. rachel's half glorification half hatred of both of them felt so realistic as a young 20 year old trying desperately to project stability on people older than you to give you hope, even though they don't have their lives together either and are trying desperately themselves to project the image that they do.

and carey!!! carey my love my sweet who tries and tries and tries. rachel's narration worked so well to highlight the way that she experienced this relationship and how different it was to the way he did, and the closure that comes back at the end and the dual reflection so that they both understood each others perspectives was divine.

there are some really deep and complex issues in this book as well, covering reproductive rights, what it would have been like to be gay in ireland in 2010, the overwhelming pressure of dealing with money and finances in your early 20s especially with the backdrop of a recession, and just how to find direction in your life for the first time. all of them were handled with care, even if care didn't always mean delicately. they all felt realistic, with realistic and messy conflicts built in, and i loved that.

for the first time in years i actually physically cried when i read the last 100 pages of this book. it was so palpably human the way that everyone was desperate for closure and unsure how to get there but doing their best to try anyway. deenie and fred ending up as mirrors of each other, and <spoiler> rachel getting the perfect end to her character arc by finally removing herself from a situation and letting people handle it without her, finally untangling herself from james. </spoiler>

i highly recommend this one. ive already recommended it to like four people with live videos of me crying my eyes out and then saying you should read this book, which im not sure is the most effective strategy, but its the one we're going with.

"Exciting romantic life! When I couldn’t even make Carey shag me in a bread shop."

I looooooooove a coming of age story and I love literary fiction. Once the story and characters came together, I was eating The Rachel Incident up. I was ONE with James and Rachel. I love how the author writes about Rachel’s inner thoughts. We’ve all had these thoughts before and where our mind leads, but you don’t realize it until you’re reading this story and I was just in awe of it. It’s a surprising kind of writing. Privey to someone's private thoughts that you just wouldn't think to read and I loved it. You're also watching Rachel grow up in her early 20s. Sometimes what she says and thinks she knows is wrong, but she can't help saying or thinking it anyway. It's a fine line between loving the characters and hating them. Reading this was like a lovely and entertaining lucid dream and I think it is a specific type of humor, but it was the dry-wit for me. I laughed so much and just gasped in surprise.

I did learn a lot about Ireland, specifically Cork in 2010 and the recession. But also about friendship and love. That one friend you are so solely comfortable with and discover yourself with too. The Rachel Incident was both vulnerable and a surprising twist of events for a plot, I won't spoil much but I do recommend going in completely blind. If you are AT ALL triggered by triggers, please check the trigger warnings for this book. Otherwise, I won't say the triggers here because I do think it will spoil a little bit of a plot.

You're in for a TREAT with The Rachel Incident! It was a 4.5 star for me. I can't wait to talk to more people about this one and will definitely be picking up more from Caroline O'Donoghue. Some quotes below that are neither here nor there...

“Do you think Ryanair makes all their money from abortions?” I said limply. “It’s a pretty amazing business model, when you think about it."

"I had always assumed that I loved kooky people but maybe now I hated them."

"I feel like someone who has been on death row for years, and am experiencing a strange release at finally having my number called."

"He has a huge friend group in New York, and is as dedicated to each of them as he is to me." - Me aspiring to be James to everyone.

This book is beautiful and original. It’s the kind of story where you sigh like “the struggle is real”—for real, and coming from all around; family, friends, persons of interest, finances, and even health. To be in love with two men, none of whom you can have, I felt it, really. The writing is brilliant and heartfelt. I loved it.

i am surprised by how much I really liked this book. i couldn't put it down. the drama sucked me in and I couldn’t wait to see what happened next.

the author is able to weave in topics like infidelity, sexuality, abortion, economic stability, and career aspirations with such ease. i loved the friendship between rachel and james. even though they would unintentionally hurt each other, they were always able to forgive and be there for each other.

if you're a fan of sally rooneys, you will like this book. reminded me of My Last Innocent Year but with a twist.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

What a book! The story of Rachel and James living together and figuring out life together. I enjoyed the friendship and the relationships in this book so much!

I received an advanced copy of this through Netgalley, but all opinions are my own.