I really enjoyed this book and the authors writing style, lilting and engaging. It was so easy to drop into the world O’Donoghue created and her characters will stay with me for a long time.

I ended up alternating between reading this hardcopy and listening to it as an audiobook. I really enjoyed the story in both formats. Great way to interconnect the characters. The ending felt a little too unrealistic and tidy, but I enjoyed the rest so much that I was okay with it. I did want one character to be more present towards the end as I missed their dynamic, but again the rest of the story worked really well for me.

I always appreciate the reflection piece in stories and this has it. Rachel tells the story of the specific events of her 20s while in her 30s, so it is a perspective where you understand that “youth” plays into her decisions and actions. I enjoyed the path the story took and look forward to what the author writes next. Will be posting review on Instagram @carolinehoppereads

Funny, page-turning, and unputdownable without relying on tropes of domestic suspense--this is exactly what I want from a contemporary summer read.

Rachel works in a bookshop in Cork. While working there she makes three very different and deep relationships with men named James. I so wanted to love this novel. I had read such good reviews but I was relieved to finish the last page. While entertaining on parts, I struggled to enjoy every part of the novel.

Thank you, NetGalley for the chance to read Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident.
Pub date: June 22, 2023

Facts:
I loved this book so much.
It left me in such a book hangover that nothing I've picked up since can keep my attention.
This is one of my favorite books of the year so far.

Why I loved it:
I can totally see myself in Rachel. Not necessarily because we've experienced the same things, just because I find her relatable and I really fucking like her.
The actual "Rachel Incident" in the book is awesome.
This has a strong LGBTQ+ representation.
I love Coming-of-age novels, especially when the characters come-of-age as adults. Because that's what I did.

What it's about, in a nutshell:
Rachel meets her very heterosexual friend, James while working at a bookstore in Ireland. The two become inseparable and end up moving in together. What follows is the coming-out of James, and the impressively addictive love stories and triangles and dramas of the two friends.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I give this five of the brightest, shiniest stars!

Loved the characterization in this novel. O'Donoghue does an excellent job at capturing the mayhem that is young adulthood. Readers are pulled in with an engrossing storyline led by intriguing, flawed characters. Perfect amount of complexity, writing style, and overall energy. Highly recommended.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC of #TheRachelIncident

Rachel, a student finishing her final year of university, meets James, a closeted high school graduate, while working at a bookstore in Cork, Ireland. The 2010 Recession is in full swing, Ireland having been hit particularly hard, and Rachel is unsure what she will do with her English degree after she graduates. Rachel and James develop a quick and tight-night friendship, choosing to move in together when James admits that he is need of a roommate. They tell each other everything and are unfailingly loyal to one another, including and until Rachel tells James about a crush on her married professor. Intending to facilitate their relationship, James organizes a scheme for Rachel to seduce him, but instead ends up in a relationship with the professor himself. Their secret romance sets off a cascade of intertwined events between Rachel, James, the professor, and his well-connected wife as Rachel and James try to figure out the next steps for their future.

This is a beautifully written, expertly crafted, character-driven novel filled with humor. It is the story of friendship, hardship, young adulthood, and discovery. It is an exploration of power dynamics and their fragility. It is filled to the brim with dysfunction but also tenderness, and I loved every second of it.

A nice coming of age story that was a little confusing to read because of the lack of a defined break between the two timelines in the story.
I also wish we got to see a bit more of the "present" timeline, especially leading up to the end. I feel like seeing more of the grown-up characters would've provided a stronger payoff.

Thank you to the author and publisher for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this book. I think the story was unique and loved every single moment of it.

I thought that this was a very real picture of the messy lives of early 20-somethings. I found myself relating to Rachel and also hoping that she got it together by the end of the book. There were some shocking things that happened that left my mouth open, but I mean sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I was happy that the truth came out at the end, I just wish that we actually got to see the second half of the truth being revealed. I did enjoy the writing style and how the friendship between James and Rachel evolved.

Absolutely loved this one. I had no particular expectations going into this, other than the blurb sounded interesting, and what I got was a engrossing story full of flawed but endearing people. Plus, there was a perfect moment 3/4 of the way into the book that made me realize just how invested I'd become in Rachel, James, Carey, Dr. Byrne, and Deenie. It's also full of affection--complicated though it may be--for a moment and place in Cork, Ireland.

Highly recommend.

This was a very character driven book about two characters living in Cork, Ireland on the precipice of adulthood. It deals with some heavy topics so check your trigger warnings.

Synopsis:

Rachel and James met at a book shop they both worked at and were immediately drawn to one another and became the best of friends. James has a secret that he keeps locked away and Rachel is one of the first and only people to learn of it. This secret infringes on Rachel’s crush on her handsome and very intelligent professor that has just written a book.

James and Rachel’s friendship intrudes on both of their romantic relationships and threatens to ruin the relationship in the end.

My thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed this as an audiobook. The Irish narrator was perfect for the Irish setting. Most of the characters are heavily flawed but you can’t help but relate to their struggles. I liked how the author wove Ireland’s social climate at the time in the novel. I highly recommend giving this one a read or listen!

Rachel, a student in Ireland, meets her best friend James while working at a bookstore. James, who insists he is heterosexual, encourages Rachel to flirt with her married professor Dr. Bryne and together they hatch a half-hearted plan to get them in the same room. The plan goes awry when instead James is the one making out with Dr. Bryne in the back of the bookstore. From there, relationships get murky and secrets abound. Set against a backdrop of economic depression and limited reproductive rights, Ireland itself plays a role in the struggles and challenges of the story’s characters. Written as a sort of flashback, the main character Rachel is currently a writer and is finally putting pen to paper to reveal all the secrets, lies and moral boundary-crossing that took place in her youth.

While there wasn’t anything life-changing about this book, it was a perfectly enjoyable read. I appreciated the friendship between Rachel and James as well as the context of life in Ireland during these years. It was a good, easy summer read that’ll keep you entertained until the end.

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the advance copy of this book.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue
⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

Thank you to #NetGalley and Penguin Random House for providing me this book.

This book was such a great encapsulation of the chaos energy of my personal recollection of early 20s college/life launching days. You think you are an adult, making adult decisions, doing adult things. You are absolutely not. The dual timelines really drove home the unhinged ways things unravel in early adulthood.

If you loved My Dark Vanessa, this is a good marriage between the power dynamics involved and anything by Sally Rooney. This would be a great limited series especially with the 90s vibes.

Messy people and thorny ethics are the absolute best for a sunny summer read. I'm having a bit of a hard time selling it but I definitely recommend this one for a wide audience. Pick up for the mess and stay for the heart! This one is out now!

Rachel and James are best friends in Cork, Ireland. Working at a bookstore and living together in a frigid apartment, they are inseparable, trying to figure out what path they want to take in life. Rachel’s professor soon becomes involved in both her and James’ life and things get…complicated.

The story is told both from the present day Rachel, pregnant and living in London, and from a younger Rachel, in 2010 during the recession, as we are walked through the time leading up to a major turning point in her life.

I fell in love with Rachel and James and missed them when the story ended. This is a quirky and honest coming of age story that will leave you reminiscing on your early 20s and all the messy decisions and relationships you had. I think what worked so well here was that older Rachel was reflecting back on that time in her past and brings some self-awareness to the story that otherwise would be lacking with just young Rachel’s perspective.

I really enjoyed this quirky, poignant and relatable story. The addition of heavy themes like body autonomy and being queer while living in a conservative Ireland gave some weight to the book.

This was an enjoyable and relatable coming-of-age read with real characters. If you are in your 20s, in college, or trying to find your identity, I highly recommend this read! Rachel and James’ messy relationship makes you feel OK knowing that everyone has ups-and-downs.

<b>Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the lives of her characters in 2010s Ireland.</b>

In Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction <i>The Rachel Incident,</i> main character Rachel is an Irish university student working in a Cork bookstore in the 2010s. She's dating a boring but reliable young man from her high school and living at home when she meets James.

James is irresistible, vivacious, and mischievous--and Rachel is immediately swept into his powerful orbit. They move in together and she largely subsumes her life in order to be part of his.

<b><blockquote>I wanted to protect him against the world's many disappointments, guard him with my body like I would a baby or a small dog.</b></blockquote>

Meanwhile, she is bowled over by her handsome, opinionated literature professor, Dr. Byrne, and in an attempt to ingratiate herself to him, she insinuates herself into a complicated role of supporting the publication of his academic-press book through her bookstore job.

Rachel meets another James, James Carey (who she calls "Carey," as she already has a James), falling for him despite his sometimes-flaky behavior.

James comes out as gay, and a complicated web of relationships builds between Dr. Byrne, his wife, James, Carey, and Rachel.

Rachel is dedicated to both James and to Carey, and <i>The Rachel Incident</i> is centered around Rachel and her Jameses coming of age, making mistakes and missteps, struggling with money crises and career decisions, and figuring out where and how they want to be in the world.

Years later, Rachel runs into someone from her past, which spurs her to think back to the events and relationships that shaped her during her college years.

Despite some of the questionable, haunting choices that are made at times in the story, I was so taken with the characters that my cringing didn't hamper my enjoyment of the celebration of friendship, circuitous routes to self-confidence, and heartwarming second chances.

I loved <i>The Rachel Incident</i>--the story, the characters, and the vivid setting of 2010s Ireland.

<b><blockquote>I am good at a few things, but I am great at being married. As I learned that year in Shandon Street, there is nothing that my personality or my humour thrives on more than being able to see the same person at the same time every day. I thrive on overexposure, on elaborate jokes, on private mythology.</b></blockquote>

I received a prepublication copy of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf.

Caroline O'Donoghue is also the author of <i>Scenes of a Graphic Nature, Promising Young Women,</i> and the teen series All Our Hidden Gifts.

✨ Review ✨ The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue; Narrated by Tara Flynn

This was a really brilliantly written coming-of-age story set in 2010 Cork, Ireland. Rachel's a student working at a bookstore. Early in the story, she meets James, closeted and tons of fun, and they move in together as platonic besties. When Rachel has a crush on her professor, she and James drum up hype for his obscure academic book so that they can host a book reading for him at the shop. It doesn't result in Rachel hooking up with her prof, but he does hook up with someone else....

The book is funny and sad and just stews in the financial woes of the post-2008 economy. It speaks to social and sexual norms of 2010 and really felt true to this time. The difficulty of accessing abortion care in Ireland features a theme and I thought the book tackled this well -- showing how hard it would have been to orchestrate gaining access in this time and place.

The writing was beautiful - so many quotes spoke to me. It read with the inner vulnerability of stream of consciousness writing even though it wasn't that. The way it dealt with academia, sexual norms, and such reminded me a bit of Vladimir by Julia May Jones and the beautiful writing and coming-of-age themes reminded me of Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano.

It's also a story of found family -- Rachel ends up surrounded by men named James. I really loved the on-again/off-again plot around James Carey, the boy that she's obsessed with and the man that she falls in love with. The book comes together in a way in the epilogue that I'd have never quite have guessed, and I loved that as well.

My only critique is that the 2010 story is surrounded by present day narration and especially in the audio, it wasn't clear when it was jumping back to the present. I wish this had been more obvious.

This made for a great read with a friend; and the audio was incredible.Tara Flynn brings the Irish accents, the voices of the characters, and everything together in such an emotional, engaging way. I definitely recommend the audio!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: literary fiction, {recent} historical fiction
Setting: 2010 Cork, Ireland + some London
Reminds me of: Vladimir meets Hello Beautiful + a meta version of Will & Grace
Pub Date: out now!

Read this if you like:
⭕️ literary fiction + coming-of-age
⭕️ recent historical fiction (set in 2010, Cork, Ireland)
⭕️ gay man + cishet woman best-friendship
⭕️ beautiful, emotional writing

Thanks to Knopf, PRHAudio, and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!

finished this 20 minutes ago and already know I’ll be up for hours just thinking about it. silly and tender and intimate and also raw and biting and heartbreaking

This is Sally Rooney for people who are bothered by Sally Rooney. A beautiful story of friendship and the mess of your early twenties…relationships, family, career, sex, and navigating everything as a young adult. It was funny, heartwarming, heartbreaking and transportive. So glad I read this.