This was an odd book for me. I did not personally enjoy the first half of this story, but as it progressed, I slowly was drawn in. It still was not my favorite book. There was something about the way it was laid out and about Rachael herself that I just didn’t connect with. I think that the past and present Rachael sometimes did not quite play out as smoothly as I would have liked. I did enjoy the twist that was at the end of the book though. This book deals a lot with growth. Growth as a person, as someone who knows their worth, and as someone who realizes that while friendship might at the time seem to be an end all be all it can be a crutch that doesn’t allow you to see those around you. I will say that this book is very realistic, which many readers will enjoy. It is raw there is no sugar coating the experiences that Rachael and James go through.
Thank you to Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage and Anchor, and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

I'm in the minority here but this book just wasn't for me. Found I didn't care for the characters much and just couldn't connect with them at all, although I have to say that I did like James more than I liked Rachel. Maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind while reading this book and that's why it just didn't click for me. I ended up skimming through the book quickly just to get to the end.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy.

Words cannot describe how much I loved this book. A coming-of-age tale set in the early 2000s in Cork, Ireland, Rachel is the kind of messy, recognizable character that simultaneously makes me miss my early 20s and be very glad that they’re done.

The titular incident is compelling and satisfyingly gray, but it's the characters and their relationships that are the driving beat of this story. I loved them all and wish I could have stayed within their world just a little longer.

Read if you like: Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney, Fleabag, feeling nostalgic for the worst part of your life

This is probably one my favourite books I’ve read this year. If you liked ‘Conversations with Friends’ you’ll love this. It is a funny, touching coming of age story which perfectly encapsulates the messiness of being 20, falling in love, trying to be independent and making the wrong choices.

Our main character Rachel, is an English Student living in Cork. She meets, James, a gay man who has yet to make this public knowledge and they quickly become best friends. James begins an affair with Rachel’s professor, the married Dr Byrne and she is suddenly pulled into the lying and scheming. She soon meets another James, Carey, as she refers to him and begins a relationship that can only be described as complicated.

I felt myself very invested in all of these characters. Their flaws are actually one of the main reasons I found them so relatable. Rachel makes awful decisions multiple times throughout, however, her naivety became endearing. Partly because we all have been that 21 year old trying to make sense of the world around us.

The way O’Donohuge tells the story through the eyes of an older Rachel was captivating. As years have matured her, it was interesting to see Rachel go back to her 21 year old self and relive the events only this time with the wonderful gift of hindsight.

O’Donohue writes with such vivid detail that it is very easy to feel like a fly on the wall. The quick witted dialogue went further in bringing characters to life. I found myself laughing at interactions and feeling the anguish Rachel feels at different events.

This is truly a wonderful book that takes on bold themes and many emotions. Definitely one I would recommend

This book was not for me. If I knew what "incident" in the title was about, I would not have picked this book up. But by the time the plot got around to the actual moment, it was too late for me to DNF.

The writing is fine. Rachel and her friends are just aimless, degenerates for most of the story. Most of the choices they made were awful. I felt bad for Carey and Deenie and felt like both of them should have gotten the hell away from these people.

But just because it didn't work for me, doesn't mean it won't work for you. It reminded me of Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends. If you liked that, you'll probably like this.

Review will be posted on Insta by publication date (@ellie.reads.a.lot)

THIS BOOK!!! Wow- I ended up listening to the audiobook and I could NOT stop listening. Narration is fantastic- in Irish accents no less!

Onto the book itself- Have you ever finished a book, loved it, but didn't really know why?? That happens to me quite often and this was one of those books. It heavily involves infidelity which I typically HATE, however this one sucked me in. There's much more to the story, specifically a strong friendship, which was lovely, This storytelling takes "coming of age" to a new level. I really really felt that spirit of your 20s when you're figuring your life out. There were some laugh out loud moments and AHH overall I just loved it. Well done, O'Donoghue on what I think is her debut novel?!

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.