Name: The Rachel Incident
ISBN: 9780349013541

Caroline O'Donoghue

Where would I start, and how would it even make sense? How could you understand the year in Shandon Street unless you were there, with us, living it?

Rachel Murray is 21 years old, platonically infatuated with her housemate James, and less-than-platonically infatuated with her enigmatic, married English professor Dr Byrne. Over the course of a year, as Rachel and James's lives become more and more deeply entwined with those of Dr Byrne and his perfect wife Deenie, tensions rise and a shocking secret threatens everything they hold dear.

THE RACHEL INCIDENT by Caroline O'Donoghue is a sharp, poignant and beautifully told story of losing yourself, finding yourself and the lengths we will go to for those we love.

The Rachel Incident

rachel

Sitting in his pokey little office, I thought what I always do when I’m in a small room with a man I’m not related to, which is: 

We knew we loved each other, but we didn’t know what to do with it.

Andre Bohrer

"The thing about Carey," James said once, when we were up late and commiserating over our hopeless men, "is that he would walk over hot coals for you, but he won't commit to lunch plans.”

He sighed a strange, tired sigh. "You can do anything without me." He fell asleep then. Leaving me to bask in the oddness of the comment, and to wish that he had stopped at the word "anything."

The year in Shandon Street did a lot for me, but it did this most of all. It detached me from any kind of inherited moral system. I stopped sizing others up in accordance with the values I had been taught: who was a loser, who was closeted, who was cheating on their wife. I learned the value of context, and of people.

When something good happens to you at that age, you can't settle with the notion that it's a one-off. You want it to be the beginning of a tradition. That's how I felt about that night: I wanted it already to be a memory, a foundational one, a first evening of many similar evenings. I wanted future nostalgia, a rear-view, years-old fondness for something that had literally just happened.

“If you weren’t looking closely, you would have seemed fine… but I was looking closely, so.”

But, even through my tears, I could feel something happening within myself. I had told a stranger to fuck off, and I had meant it. I had drawn a line with someone. I had never really done that before.

It was like finding your favourite pair of boots under the bed.

It was like finding them on the last day of your lease, the boxes already in the van, having assumed that they must have been left at an ex-lover's house, or simply vanished by your own carelessness.

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.

A year can feel so long in your early 20s. 

Rebecca Harwood

Voices every 20-something thought you’ve ever had from that period of life, but treats it gently. Not in a self-loathing way, but in a “we have all been young, insecure, and dumb once” kind of way. I read another reviewer say that it’s somewhere between Normal People and Girls, and I couldn’t agree more. Similarly, there’s lots of interpersonal drama but it’s always leveled by a poetic writing that helps you have empathy for this past version of yourself.

I like that it takes place mostly in 2010. That is to say it’s one of the few period pieces I’ve actually lived through, so it all feels particularly relatable on that level.

Voices every 20-something thought you’ve ever had from that period of life, but treats it gently. Not in a self-loathing way, but in a “we have all been young, insecure, and dumb once” kind of way. I read another reviewer say that it’s somewhere between Normal People and Girls, and I couldn’t agree more. Similarly, there’s lots of interpersonal drama but it’s always leveled by a poetic writing that helps you have empathy for this past version of yourself.

I like that it takes place mostly in 2010. That is to say it’s one of the few period pieces I’ve actually lived through, so it all feels particularly relatable on that level.

i really enjoy floundering young women stories. especially Irish. They’re distantly relatable. always literary and messy and admire older men.

mara henderson

I feel like I have read about 20 trendy books that have tried to be this book and I am so glad that this did not stop me from picking up "The Rachel Incident". Messy, messy people but at the same time, all characters with whom you could sympathise and whom you could understand. I think it was the warmth of the writing itself that was coming through in this and perhaps what really helps set O'donoghue apart from her peers. 

Yeah, it was Dolly Alderton-esque but I feel like the characters weren’t fully baked in the same way. High drama though and loved the friendship between James and Rachel. 

Coley T

So many of the girlies writing today wish they had Caroline's heat but they simply DO NOT

Regan Martin

Kaelan Chambers

I loved this book. Sally Rooney-esque nostalgic slow burn.

Aeryn Emmerich-Wise

This book made me wanna go back in time and give 21 aeryn a hug 🥹 girlhood!!!! It’s a lot!!!

High drama! Very relatable even though I haven’t been through basically anything any of characters went through lol 

Allegrachatterjee

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love.

Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It’s simple. It’s complicated. It’s about love, sex and friendship. It’s definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it’s the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up 

A lot of summary but the voice was strong enough to carry it. Enjoyed it.

Jess Rez

This was pretty uninteresting to me and I feel like the first third of the book was pretty hard to get through since the pacing was so slow. I found that the way James was described wasn’t nearly as glamorous or alluring as I would’ve liked to picture him, so it made it so incredibly easy to vilify him (I mean, he was clearly the villain). After the “incident” I hoped there would be more depth into Rachel and James’ relationship post-heartbreak/trauma/misfortune, but it unfortunately ended very flatly. I will say there were some funny lines and that kept me interested enough to finish. 

Rana Sulieman

nice easy good read. not much happens but still makes you want to read more. conversations with friends esque. enjoyed 

Amalie

Loved this book! It encompasses so much of life in college and navigating love and life! Beautiful!

Liz Madden

Hannah

“I was twenty and I needed two things: to be respected, and to be in love” 
I really enjoyed this book I love the way it was written and the way the story is told the perspective it takes over it all the unfolds is really captivating. I think Rachel is a really endearing protagonist and I really enjoyed seeing how her character progressed throughout the reactions she has to the things she’s done and the way she lives so freely? I don’t know if that’s the right word but her character building is so good. I love how messy and complicated and the way everyone was intertwined in this story and I will be reading again

Margo Koss

a coming of age novel, cleverly narrated by our main character, rachel, retelling her early 20s from 10 or so years later. a very easy read, i flew through it pretty quickly. it’s very funny but also deals with more serious topics well too. my favourite thing about the book being the platonic love between rachel and her best friend james, their friendship is truly what drives this book.
3.5 out of 5. thank you NetGalley for providing the advanced copy.

treena

Clever, relatable. Some pieces felt so familiar. The flippancy of youth, the airiness, the frivolity, the casual affairs, everything inlaid with emotional meaning while also being so meaningless. A reflection on what follows you and what doesn’t, what shapes your life and what falls away.

Amelia

Reading this book was an experiment for me (I’ve never been very interested in this genre) but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it! The prose was well written and easy to follow, the characters were complex and full of life, and I really liked the structure of the story.

Something that saved this book (in my opinion) is that it was narrated by Rachel’s older self and she has the benefit of hindsight, which she uses to talk frankly about the “questionable” decisions she made in her early 20s. I think if the book had been narrated solely by “young” Rachel, her immaturity would have been grating. But when it’s framed as a retrospect, it’s easier to laugh and remember that no one has anything figured out at that age. 

I also really liked that this was a platonic love story. Yes, it’s also about romantic love, but the story always comes back to the friendship between Rachel and James. Even though their friendship was codependent at times, I loved how important it was to the story.

The book also had some very interesting things to say about reproductive rights. I won’t talk about it too much to avoid spoilers, but I’ll just say I have a lot of thoughts. I like having a lot of thoughts when I finish a book. 

Overall this was some good litfic about being young and trying to build a life for yourself while the world’s falling apart around you. I wouldn’t say it really changed my life but it was an enjoyable read.

Cloudface

Reading this book was an experiment for me (I’ve never been very interested in this genre) but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it! The prose was well written and easy to follow, the characters were complex and full of life, and I really liked the structure of the story.
Something that saved this book (in my opinion) is that it was narrated by Rachel’s older self and she has the benefit of hindsight, which she uses to talk frankly about the “questionable” decisions she made in her early 20s. I think if the book had been narrated solely by “young” Rachel, her immaturity would have been grating. But when it’s framed as a retrospect, it’s easier to laugh and remember that no one has anything figured out at that age. 
I also really liked that this was a platonic love story. Yes, it’s also about romantic love, but the story always comes back to the friendship between Rachel and James. Even though their friendship was codependent at times, I loved how important it was to the story.
The book also had some very interesting things to say about reproductive rights. I won’t talk about it too much to avoid spoilers, but I’ll just say I have a lot of thoughts. I like having a lot of thoughts when I finish a book. 

Overall this was some good litfic about being young and trying to build a life for yourself while the world’s falling apart around you. I wouldn’t say it really changed my life but it was an enjoyable read.

Obsessed with this book. It touches on so many important topics via characters and a story that feels somehow both cozy and devastating? Loved it. Listened on audiobook and the narration was delightful as well. 

erin alise 

This book really filled my heart up, and made me laugh out loud. I'm so happy to have read it. 

g.m.

The international bestseller: a hilarious, heartfelt story of all-consuming and unexpected love.

Everyone in Cork remembers the Rachel Incident. But what really happened? It’s simple. It’s complicated. It’s about love, sex and friendship. It’s definitely about betrayal. And, above all, it’s the story of Rachel and James, two twenty-somethings who met at a bookshop, became best friends, and spent one unforgettable year screwing up and growing up.

The Rachel Incident

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