The Rachel Incident

by Caroline O’Donoghue

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf a division of Penguin Random House
Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: Literature / Fiction
Read This If You Love: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“When you love someone, you sign up for the whole thing.”

Rachel is 21 and trying to figure out life when one pivotal year changes everything. The year is 2010 and the setting is Ireland where we follow the complex relationships between Rachel, her best friend James, and her professor. What events will butterfly effect out and how will it all end?

This is a poignant new novel that I was drawn to by a praise quote from the author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Both books fit in the same literary fiction vein and both tackle coming of age stories mixed with societal issues and complex adolescent to adulthood relationships. While I didn’t feel The Rachel Incident to hold the same level of nostalgia (largely due to the fact that I was the same age as the characters in Tomorrow), it still took me back to 2010. 

While the main plot revolves around Rachel and James, their lives are set in Ireland during a time of great economic and financial turmoil and during a time when reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights are debated.

O’Donoghue’s writing was steady with some brilliant lines sprinkled about…

“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. It came in handy later on, when I became a journalist.”

“If I didn’t have carbs three times a day I couldn’t finish a sentence, and that was that.”