This a great summer read.

It’s a coming of age dramedy about friends and lovers searching for their what’s next in an economically uncertain Ireland of the early 2000s. The book is fully inhabited by its lovable, yet flawed twenty-something, Rachel Murray, who tries to figure out her place in the world of crisis, confusion, love, rumor and innuendo.

Rachel has just finished university with an English degree. Unfortunately for her, the timing is off. Ireland is in the middle of an economic downturn. Her future doesn’t seem promising and while trying to get her footing in a professional world, she gets sidelined by a love affair and a scandal that has little to do with her and much to do about questionable choices.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donogue Knopf 2023

The form is intriguing. Written as a first-person narrative, it is a novel written like a memoir. This gives the reader an inside view of how this confused, vulnerable woman is navigating an off-the-charts life. The way she describes her feelings and self-reflection as she muddles through losses, gains, insurmountable embarrassment, and faulty decision-making is riveting and you can’t help but hope she’ll pull it together.

She grew up in the middle class and fully expected she would launch herself into an exciting professional life.  Her parents who had given her a comfortable life up until now are in financial trouble and as she finishes college, she is without financial support. She gets a part time job in a struggling bookstore and meets James Devlin, a closeted gay man, with whom she shares an apartment and deep affection. Platonically in love, the two live a riotous life together, sharing every feeling and desire for the future. 

The story hinges on her infatuation with one of her English professors who has a love affair with her roommate, James.  It gets complicated when she gets an internship with the professor’s wife while at the same time navigating a love affair with a man who is also trying to find himself. All roads lead to the titled INCIDENT.

It is a marvelous read. Although serious issues are threaded throughout and Rachel can be her own worst enemy, it is also very funny. The characters are fully drawn, and we understand them and want them to do better and have more. It is a mesmerizing trip as we journey with Rachel through her self-deprecation, wrong decisions, complicated relationships, and eventual road to adulthood.

Caroline O’Donoghue is a New York Times bestselling author and podcaster. She has published two adult novels, Promising Young Women and Scenes of a Graphic Nature. I definitely plan to read them both.

Her YA debut fantasy, All Our Hidden Gifts has been widely read. Now, a trilogy, it was followed by The Gifts That Binds Us (2021) and a third, coming out later this year. Her award-winning podcast, Sentimental Garbage covers “the culture we love that society can sometimes make us feel ashamed of.” Sounds like there might be a bit of Rachel in her…

Caroline O’Donoghue, author

Many thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It was released last week.

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