I really enjoyed this book! I haven't highlighted passages in a book in quite a while and I found myself wanting to remember so much of this! I loved Rachel and all of her James'. I found myself rooting for Rachel at so many points, and I just loved learning about her life. I wish the book had been longer even.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for this chance to read this banger of a book. I really enjoyed this coming of age story that took place in 2010s Ireland. I think every bookworm has dreamed of having a job in a bookstore once or one thousand times in our lifetimes, and Rachel is the lucky one who gets to work at one. She is also trying to find love and figure out what she wants from life, and I love books like that. I would read this again, will tell all of my friends and family about this #bangerbook as well.

This is a character driven book about friendship and love set in Ireland.

Rachel currently lives in England; she has a family and a job. The story is her reflecting on the past when she was just graduating from university, the economy was in a recession and she was hanging out in Cork with her favorite people – James her best friend and roommate and her boyfriend, James who see calls Carey.

It was a story about Rachel living life in her early 20’s, figuring out who she wants to be and navigating her relationships with her best friend and boyfriend. It was full of nostalgia. Rachel’s character didn’t make the best decisions, but what 21-year-old does? I loved following along Rachel’s life and wanted to know what was going to happen. It was an easy read and one that I couldn’t put down. I’m surprised how much I enjoyed it!

This book was clever, fun and funny. The characters are flawed in the best way and we see them all grow and come into themselves. I really rooted for James and Rachel throughout, I adore them.

I was lucky enough to be given an ARC of this book and I am sad that I waited as long as I did to read it!

This book literally had humor and heartbreak and did an exquisite job of blending them together. I desperately want to be in the friends group of Rachel and James even though they are both quite messy. I loved the dialogue and the witty banter between these two and feel like I could hang out with them in their apartment.

While there were so many funny moments, there were also issues that we as a society face today which made you stop and think about what you would do in Rachel or James's situations.

Overall, I felt that this was a solid read and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Thank you to NetGalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review. I loved this one.

This book left me feeling let down and unimpressed.

One of the major shortcomings was the writing style. It lacked the engaging quality needed to captivate and immerse readers in the story. The prose felt bland and uninspiring, failing to evoke any real emotions or create a compelling atmosphere.

Additionally, the characters were poorly developed and uninteresting. They lacked depth and complexity, making it difficult to connect or care about their experiences. I loved James and I loved Rachel but we only saw them superficially and I wanted more.

The plot was underwhelming and lacked direction. It meandered aimlessly, failing to offer any significant tension or intrigue. The entire story was hinged on the one major event but all the lead up and lead off were... Boring? I was both interested and uninterested in everything.

Overall, I found this to be a disappointing read. The lackluster writing, underdeveloped characters, and aimless plot made it difficult to fully engage with the story. Maybe if I had read this when I was also in my early 20's as the characters were, I would have enjoyed this book more.

I loved this. I found it funny and earnest, showcasing the borderline-narcissism that comes with coming-of-age. A lot of cringing in a way that I am grateful for. It's good to be on the other side. In addition, I really liked the setting.

I really enjoyed reading The Rachel Incident and it threw me back to being twenty-something and unsure of what I wanted to do in life. The story follows Rachel and her relationship with her new coworker James. The pair quickly become best friends and their lives become more and more entangled. It's a bad time to be in Cork - there are no jobs and everyone is fleeing for the promise of new opportunities in London. There is pain and heartbreak as the pair make a series of questionable decisions, but there is also so much love. I loved their friendship and was glad we got to see a bit of a time skip to see where Rachel and James ended up.

The ending was a very happy surprise.

I've seen this book compared to Sally Rooney's novels and would agree that if you like Conversations with Friends you may enjoy this one was well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Knopf for a review copy.

(𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘴 𝘵𝘰 @𝘢𝘢𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘱𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 - out tomorrow.) Let’s start with the good news: it’s all good news! I loved 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗛𝗘𝗟 𝗜𝗡𝗖𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗡𝗧 by Caroline O’Donoghue. It was exactly the right book for my reading taste. Told by Rachel from a vantage point in the future where she’s able to look back on her younger self with grace and forgiveness. At the heart of these memories is James who’s been her best friend from the time they met way back when. As Rachel neared the end of college the two were roommates, confidants, cheerleaders, and more. Theirs was a complex friendship, with lots of knots to untangle, but their devotion to each other remained constant. ⁣
⁣
It’s impossible for me to talk about this book without comparing it to the works of Sally Rooney, especially 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘍𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘴, which I adored. Both Irish authors focused on that tender age when mistakes come easily, heartache is never far away, money is always tight, and friends can be lifelines. Both created really beautiful stories that began with youthful connections that grew into much more.⁣
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Oftentimes humorous, always thoughtful, and more than once educational, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘭 𝘐𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 was a coming-of-age story full of deep friendship, pain, romance and growth. What more could you want? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣
∙

Rachel met the two most important men in her life, her BFF James and her English professor Dr. Byrne, when she was a 20 year old university student working in a bookstore. Hoping to start a fling with Dr. Byrne, Rachel concocts a scheme to get Dr. Byrne to the bookstore, hopefully for some one-on-one time in the storeroom. But things backfire when she introduces him to her housemate James, and the two men are instantly attracted to each other.
Contemporary fiction set in 21st century Ireland. I forgot how awful being in your 20s could be: looking for a job, convinced you're never going to find love, trying to save money so you can move to a decent apartment, avoiding your family while still needing them, believing that everyone else has it all sorted out. Funny and touching, and I genuinely cared about the characters. Highly recommended.

5 dazzling stars for my new favourite summer read.
I had no idea what to expect from this, I just read the excerpt and wanted to see what it was about. From the first, I fell so hard for it, I feel like I finished this in one breath. I absolutely loved everything about this bittersweet coming-of-age novel about a girl trying to find her bearings growing up. All the characters are so lovable, so intense and real that I could not help falling for every single one of them. I have never read anything from Caroline O'Donoghue before and I have to say she is a bright star in the literary world, her style is so unique, witty and entertaining, all the while so deep, she has apparently found her balance and place in literature. She has become a favourite and this book is my new favourite. What a pleasant surprise!

▪️REVIEW▪️

The Rachel Incident ~ Caroline O’Donoghue

All the humor, confusion, and chaos of your 20s wrapped in the most unsuspecting amazingness of a book…

When James suggests a sneaky book event to lure Rachel’s professor and crush into the bookstore where they work, she could never anticipate that her life would get turned upside down. What transpires is coined “The Rachel Incident” as James and Rachel’s relationship grows and the professor and his wife become entangled in both of their lives.

So this was the sneakiest book because I didn’t really realize that I was loving it until I found that I couldn’t stop picking up my kindle to keep reading. I can’t pinpoint a favorite moment or a turning point - I just know that I was enamored with these witty, complex characters and their relationships with each other.

Rachel and James are that 20s friendship that molded your adult life - the person that accepted you, questioned you, covered for you, and helped to push you to be a better version of yourself. I was taken back to late nights, booze and takeout, failed relationships, financial angst, job insecurity - and I loved every minute of it. A quiet but impactful read with its heart on its sleeve - I loved this book!

5 stars! This book is fantastic. I highly recommend it.

I'm obsessed with going into books blind, as much as possible. Knowing little about this book's plot certainly added to my obsession with it. I raced through the book until late at night because I NEEDED to see how it would end!

But it's not a spoiler to tell you that this book is narrated from the perspective of elapsed time. By that I mean, the narrator, Rachel, is reflecting back on something that happened in her life when she was in her early 20s. She offers her younger self grace, even though she's grown and is a different person now. Can't we all relate to our 20-year-old selves feeling like a totally separate person from who we are now?

Somehow, Carolyn O'Donoghue crafts a masterful flow between exposing how Rachel saw things as it happened back then, while also showing growth and changes in perspective with age. Rachel's insight is razor sharp and extremely well written.

I was just so impressed with this book on every level! I think it could make for an interesting book club conversation.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary eARC in exchange for my honest feedback.

Rachel is living in London these days. And yet she is still sometimes known as the student who allegedly had an affair with Professor Fred Byrne when she lived in Cork, even if she never did sleep with him. This book is about what really happened. This book is about many things. It’s about two best friends, Rachel and James living in Cork during Rachel’s uni days in their early 20s, trying to gain an English Degree during the 2000s recession and later abortion rights for Ireland.

If you want to delve into a story that reminds you perfectly of your uni days, this book is perfect. I was a little slow in the first chapter to figure out the story to come, but I absolutely adored this book! I felt like I was best friends myself with Rachel and James as though I was living with them in Cork. Beautifully written, it has that flavour of Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends with two young people becoming friends with people in an older stage of their life living in Ireland, fear not if you’re not a Rooney fan - the writing and story is still distinctly its own. For Rooney fans - it has that same beautiful feeling of being in your 20s in Ireland.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf, Patheon, Vintage and Anchor Publishing for this ARC!

Such a beautiful book. The pace was slow but it was perfect for the story. This is one of those stories where you don’t know where it’s going but you keep reading because you have to know how it ends.

Thank you to NetGalley & the publisher for an advanced copy of this book.

An okay escapist read. Unrealistic and unrelatable characters, situations and dialog. Not recommending and won't read again.

Rachel Murray is an English major, working at a book shop and living in Cork when she meets her new best friend James. Together they hatch a plot for Rachel to hook up with her favourite English professor. The results of the plan are unexpected and long-reaching. This is about a being a specific age (early 20s) at a particular time and place (Ireland after the 2009 financial collapse). It's a coming-of-age novel with an aware of how the particular cultural, social, economic milieu in which you in fact come of age shapes what that coming of age looks like -- what is possible, the stories that define you, and so on. Rachel is flawed, and yet, I understand her and the messiness of her choices and desires. The ending might have been a bit rosy, but overall I loved this book. It was a perfect summer read, a good combination of juicy and thoughtful. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I really had no idea what to expect when I cracked open this book--I was wonderfully delighted by the unfolding story looking at the dynamics of best friendship, love, infidelity, rumors, and class in small town Ireland in the early aughts.

The Rachel Incident follows the antics of Rachel Murray, a young woman graduating from university just as the economy tanks. Rachel is a dynamic and engulfing main character, pulling the reader into her world: working in a bookstore, ridiculous nights with her bestie James in their depressingly broken down apartment, and her first heartbreak, also from a man named James. Bestie James drags Rachel into the undertow of a propulsive relationship he has with a married man, which skews the direction of her entire future. Rachel also deals with the struggles of so many women in a place with restrictive reproductive justice laws. O'Donoghue writes about and seamlessly threads in current issues with an urgency that is necessary.

O'Donoghue has a fantastic grasp of time, place, and character. Her writing is both crisp and lyrical. I thoroughly enjoyed this messy queer literary fiction and every place it took me! I can't wait to see what O'Donoghue writes next and return to her Hidden Gifts witchy YA series.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC. All thoughts my own.

CW: infidelity, sexual content, abortion, miscarriage, infertility, vomit.

DNF at 22%

I probably should have realized I wouldn't like this book, since I didn't like what it was compared to. That's on me.

I'm realizing that I just don't like this real life type of writing, especially if I don't like the characters. Man, did I not like these characters.

If you like these kind of books, this is probably a good one for you.

a vibrant and engaging story that makes you laugh

thank you to netgalley and to the publisher for this review copy.