For all its cringing at the narcissism of youth, The Rachel Incident offers a tender reflection on those 20-something friendships that leave a permanent imprint ... One of the many lovable things about this novel is O’Donoghue’s kindhearted perspective on the awkwardness of the college years ... O’Donoghue has found a way to tell this story in scenes both heartbreaking and funny. She may not have Binchy’s sweetness, but she illuminates these Irish lives with a light all her own.
Exuberant, bitingly satirical ... O’Donoghue has something more sophisticated in mind, hidden beneath the shagging and banter. The Rachel Incident recalls the fiction of both Sally Rooney and Anne Tyler as the author interrogates the dynamics of power, from academia to publishing houses to bedrooms ... Rachel is astute and funny as hell ... A gratifying, accomplished novel.
I didn't just read Caroline O'Donoghue's latest novel, The Rachel Incident. I pigged out on it ... The plot might sound trite, even a tad icky, but all is not what it seems. Twists await. Some of them rely maybe too heavily on coincidence but they still manage to surprise. And what could have been lightweight is enriched by placing events against a backdrop of the recession of the early 2000s ... The framing device is sometimes clunky; a mature Rachel relates events from 10 or so years down the road, butting into the narrative when least expected or needed, apparently for the purpose of foreshadowing. But none of this stopped me from simply wanting to know what was going to happen and enjoying the heck out of this novel. I gobbled it down.
O’Donoghue gives readers a quick-reading slow build that rests comfortably on strong characters, Rachel’s conversational narration, and a crisp capture of the 2010s, from recession through Ireland’s legalization of abortion and all the many shifts, mini to tectonic, therein.
Rachel’s first-person voice and wonderfully off-kilter observations make her a character you want to settle in with. By turns comic and bittersweet, this is a tender tale of platonic and first love, as well as a sharp look at such issues as homosexuality and abortion in the more repressive Ireland of pre-repeal days. The Rachel Incident will likely draw comparisons to Sally Rooney’s work, but there’s more than a hint of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones here: a bright and funny voice in a novel that wears its heart on its sleeve.
Delightful ... This deliciously complex set of entanglements lays the groundwork for the novel, O’Donoghue’s first for adults to be published in the United States, and brings to mind the gossipy 19th-century novels Dr. Byrne might teach in class. But its true joys lie in the tremendously witty characters and their relationships: The real love story of this novel is not between James and Dr. Byrne, or Rachel and her own paramour, but between Rachel and James, whose codependent glee in each other’s company will remind many readers of their own college friendships, especially those between women and queer men. A sensational new entry in the burgeoning millennial-novel genre.
