This book was requested by a previous Lesbrary reviewer who did not finish or review it. In order to keep my Netgalley feedback up to date, I am submitting this review marking it as a DNF, though it was another reviewer who requested this.

4.5 stars

Oh how my Sally-Rooney-loving heart adored "The Rachel Incident." And I don't really have much of anything critical to say about the book, so I'll keep my review short and sweet. Caroline O'Donoghue's novel is fresh, sharply observant as to matters of love and friendship, and an all around engrossing read. I loved Rachel and I loved James (most of the time), and I loved the ending Rachel found for herself.


My sincerest appreciation to Caroline O'Donoghue, Knopf, and NetGalley for the digital review copy. All thoughts and opinions included herein are my own.

Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident got me back into reading literary fiction. I was gripped to understand all of Rachel's life and how everything unwound around her in college and how she rebuilt her life after a scandal.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from this book, but I was delightfully surprised! The Rachel Incident had a Sally Rooney vibe and I loved it. I found myself wanting to shake Rachel at certain times, but I also loved the growth she had from the first page to the last. I could say so many great things about this book, the characters, the realness, friendship, second chance romance, all of these things lead to my deep love for this book!

***Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC copy in return for an honest review***

The thing is, I will always be sat for Irish lit fic.
This one is for the readers that love a flawed characters.

a truly singular book. i know it’s cliché nowadays to pretend to be shocked when a book outgrows your expectations for it, but i had no idea how much this story would mean to me. one part campus novel, one part love story, one part coming of age. rachel and james meet while working in a bookstore together while rachel is still in college. they are fast — and fierce — friends, and their lives tilt on their axes when one begins a torrid love affair. they are the center of their own universes and for 300 pages i wholly believed they were the center of mine, too. cried like a little bitch for 40 pages toward the end. clutched it to my chest and wept some more when i finished. can’t wait to reread this one for the rest of my life.

I am mad I put this one off as long as I did. I ws ready for a sally rooney-esque story but it was its own story and I devoured it. Loved the whole thing and felt like it was super charming. The writing is beautiful and moving.

This book is about two young adults who meet at a bookstore and become friends and roommates. James works in the bookstore. Rachel is in college and has fallen in love with one of her married professors. Things quickly become complicated, because two of the main characters turn out not to be heterosexual. I thought the author did an excellent job in showing how painful and complex this time of life can be.

I received an e-arc from the publisher Knopf via NetGalley, and voluntarily read and reviewed it.

The Rachel Incident promises an intriguing premise but ends up feeling more like a missed opportunity. The narrative starts with potential, but it meanders and struggles to find a clear direction. The characters are likable enough but lack the depth needed to really make you care about their journey. Some moments hit the mark, but others fall flat, leaving the plot feeling uneven. It’s an okay read if you’re looking for something light and don’t mind a bit of aimless wandering. However, if you’re after a story with a strong, cohesive impact, this one might not quite do the trick.

Rachel meets her best-friend-to-be, James, while working at a bookstore in Cork. It's love at first sight: the two of them are utterly fascinated by each other, and very quickly their blossoming friendship starts a fire that they can't put out again; Rachel's young, attractive professor is releasing a new book, and somehow the two of them manage to set up a reading for him at the bookstore. But not Rachel will develop an affair with him that changes everyones lives, and all of this in Ireland amidst the recession.
I really really really loved this book. It's written beautifully and I really liked how the characters were real, unlikeable and messy. It reminded me a lot of Sally Rooney, who is my favourite author. Still, we didn't only emphasise with the main characters, but with everyone involved in this deliciously messy story. Rachel especially was very relatable in her struggles as a young professional trying to make it in her industry whilst navigating life, which is never what you've planned. I usually do not enjoy stories told by the main character, but much older, it usually takes me out of the narrative, but for this, the two levels of narration worked beautifully. The themes and struggles of the characters were wonderfully unterlined by the setting and the time-relevant issues. I'm very excited to read more of Caroline O'Donoghue's Novels, this was an absolute treat! (Also, the audiobook is - thankfully - narrated by an Irish narrator, who is amazing at her job!)

The Rachel Incident
Caroline O’ Donoghue

I loved this book. Beautifully written and full of emotion. Even though I’m old enough to be Rachel’s mother I found I could really relate to her and I cared so much about where her story would end up. Caroline O’Donoghue has a great writing career ahead of her and I can’t wait to read what she offers us next.

I found The Rachel Incident to be a very entertaining and enjoyable read. The characters were very well developed and made it very easy to fall in to the story.

The Rachel Incident is one of those lovely, relatable novels about a young woman learning about herself and the world, striving and bumbling and yearning her way through her early 20s. The titular Rachel here is a university student, living with her (insistently heterosexual) best friend James in Cork, where they both work at a bookstore. When Rachel sets out to have an affair with her married English professor, James help her devise a plan to seduce him – which serves as the catalyst for a lot of upheaval in both of their lives.

The Rachel Incident feels at once celebratory and melancholy in its exploration of friendship, love, and the chaos of early adulthood. Caroline O’Donoghue’s writing is vibrant and rich with emotion, with a narrative voice so intimate that I often felt like I was reading a memoir. Rachel is the best kind of character: complex and vulnerable, self-aware but also sweetly naïve, beautifully young and gorgeously alive. I felt so much for her and just wanted to give her a hug and lots of reassurances that everything would be okay. Her relationships with the other characters are so vivid and relayed with so much authenticity, and it’s Rachel herself and the strength of those relationships that carry the novel.

I do agree that fans of Sally Rooney will likely enjoy The Rachel Incident – but just know that I am not a fan of Sally Rooney, and I adored it. It’s a slice of life story with so much meaning – a book that comforts you at the same time that it makes you feel just the slightest bit sad and nostalgic. It’s just fantastic storytelling all-around, and I enjoyed it so much.

Perfectly captures early twenties wit and sarcasm and commentary on adult life (the adults in question being in their mid to late thirties).

You know when you get a book you’re really excited to read and you add it to your to be read pile, for it to sit there for an obnoxiously long time and then you finally read it just to realize you should have read it right when you got it? That is this book. I loved this story. The writing is raw and crass in a very real way. Rachel’s experience with working and navigating through relationships with her roommate and different love interests makes for a great read. I loved this story. I loved her relationship with both James. This is a great read.

~ ARC provided by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group via NetGalley ~

I was sent a copy of "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O'Donoghue by the publisher, and it took me several months to finally buckle down and read it. As a longtime lover and obsessor over Sally Rooney novels, it's easy for me to make comparisons between "The Rachel Incident" and Rooney's work. I had actually just finished rereading "Conversations with Friends," which I think "The Rachel Incident" begs comparison to. But this book does stand on it's own by delivering well thought out characters and delicious miscommunication and relationship messiness. The story follows Rachel Murray and her best friend James Devlin as they navigate post-graduate life and early adulthood. I also really appreciated the books frank exploration of queerness and abortion access in Ireland--two heavy topics that drive the novel into larger conversations about modern Irish life. I genuinely loved every page of this book and it's been the latest addition to my favorite's shelf. A must-read.

This was a charming story of 20 somethings growing up and coming of age while trying to figure out life. I loved the friendship dynamics at play here.

Enjoyable but I found the plot strained at times.. I was expecting laughs and it just wasn’t that. Maybe if it were narrated in Irish accents….???

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

This is definitely a book that I have been thinking about for a while now. This novel has so much charm and wit.

I love how the story is very relatable. I’m also so pleased with how the women’s friendship is portrayed. It feels like sometimes authors miss the mark when it comes to friendships as an adult but Caroline O’Donoghue does such a beautiful job.