The Rachel Incident
A Novel
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $23.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tara Flynn
-
Written by:
-
Caroline O'Donoghue
About this listen
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three • “O'Donoghue deepens the familiar coming-of-age premise with riveting moral complications."—People
"If you’ve ever been unsure what to do with your degree in English; if you’ve ever wondered when the rug-buying part of your life will start...if you’ve ever loved the wrong person, or the right person at the wrong time…In short, if you’ve ever been young, you will love The Rachel Incident like I did.”—Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times best-selling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
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.
©2023 Caroline O'Donoghue (P)2023 Random House AudioYou may also enjoy...
-
Sorrow and Bliss
- A Novel
- Written by: Meg Mason
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.
-
-
Painfully pointless
- By Haiku_Queen on 2024-03-04
Written by: Meg Mason
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- Written by: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Brilliantly comedic and dark
- By carolyn mains on 2023-12-19
Written by: Paul Murray
-
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
- A Novel
- Written by: Xochitl Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
-
-
Just ok
- By Emma Porter on 2024-03-27
Written by: Xochitl Gonzalez
-
The Heiress
- A Novel
- Written by: Rachel Hawkins, Kiara Ronaghan
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes.
-
-
Good & Evil is in All
- By Sarah Clarke on 2024-09-06
Written by: Rachel Hawkins, and others
-
The Ministry of Time
- A Novel
- Written by: Kaliane Bradley
- Narrated by: George Weightman, Katie Leung
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
-
-
Odd pauses between dialogue
- By Ted Healey on 2024-10-30
Written by: Kaliane Bradley
-
Cleopatra and Frankenstein
- Written by: Coco Mellors
- Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank’s life is full of all the excesses Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint and the opportunity to apply for a green card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could’ve predicted.
-
-
LOVE IT
- By emma on 2024-05-29
Written by: Coco Mellors
-
Sorrow and Bliss
- A Novel
- Written by: Meg Mason
- Narrated by: Emilia Fox
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Martha Friel just turned forty. Once, she worked at Vogue and planned to write a novel. Now, she creates internet content. She used to live in a pied-à-terre in Paris. Now she lives in a gated community in Oxford, the only person she knows without a PhD, a baby or both, in a house she hates but cannot bear to leave. But she must leave, now that her husband Patrick—the kind who cooks, throws her birthday parties, who loves her and has only ever wanted her to be happy—has just moved out.
-
-
Painfully pointless
- By Haiku_Queen on 2024-03-04
Written by: Meg Mason
-
The Bee Sting
- A Novel
- Written by: Paul Murray
- Narrated by: Heather O’Sullivan, Barry Fitzgerald, Beau Holland, and others
- Length: 26 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under—but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he’s on the brink of running away.
-
-
Brilliantly comedic and dark
- By carolyn mains on 2023-12-19
Written by: Paul Murray
-
Anita de Monte Laughs Last
- A Novel
- Written by: Xochitl Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
-
-
Just ok
- By Emma Porter on 2024-03-27
Written by: Xochitl Gonzalez
-
The Heiress
- A Novel
- Written by: Rachel Hawkins, Kiara Ronaghan
- Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But in the aftermath of her death, her adopted son, Camden, wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes.
-
-
Good & Evil is in All
- By Sarah Clarke on 2024-09-06
Written by: Rachel Hawkins, and others
-
The Ministry of Time
- A Novel
- Written by: Kaliane Bradley
- Narrated by: George Weightman, Katie Leung
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.
-
-
Odd pauses between dialogue
- By Ted Healey on 2024-10-30
Written by: Kaliane Bradley
-
Cleopatra and Frankenstein
- Written by: Coco Mellors
- Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank’s life is full of all the excesses Cleo’s lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint and the opportunity to apply for a green card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could’ve predicted.
-
-
LOVE IT
- By emma on 2024-05-29
Written by: Coco Mellors
-
Big Swiss
- A Novel
- Written by: Jen Beagin
- Narrated by: Rebecca Lowman, Carlotta Brentan, Stephen Graybill, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her days transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman she affectionately refers to as Big Swiss.
-
-
give it a go!
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-08-14
Written by: Jen Beagin
-
Strong Female Character
- Written by: Fern Brady
- Narrated by: Fern Brady
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Scottish comedian Fern Brady was told she couldn't be autistic because she'd had loads of boyfriends and is good at eye contact. In this frank and surreal memoir, she delivers a sharp and often hilarious portrait of neurodivergence and living unmasked.
-
-
“i realized there were more than one of us”
- By A. on 2024-10-01
Written by: Fern Brady
-
Everything I Know About Love
- A Memoir
- Written by: Dolly Alderton
- Narrated by: Dolly Alderton
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The wildly funny, occasionally heart-breaking internationally best-selling memoir about growing up, growing older, and learning to navigate friendships, jobs, loss, and love along the ride. When it comes to the trials and triumphs of becoming an adult, journalist and former Sunday Times columnist Dolly Alderton has seen and tried it all.
-
-
Dolly who? Amazing!
- By Kitty VA on 2024-09-05
Written by: Dolly Alderton
-
All Fours
- A Novel
- Written by: Miranda July
- Narrated by: Miranda July
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman.
-
-
Waste of time
- By Ar on 2024-06-15
Written by: Miranda July
-
Annie Bot
- A Novel
- Written by: Sierra Greer
- Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Bot was created to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner Doug. Designed to satisfy his emotional and physical needs, she has dinner ready for him every night, wears the pert outfits he orders for her, and adjusts her libido to suit his moods. True, she’s not the greatest at keeping Doug’s place spotless, but she’s trying to please him. She’s trying hard.
-
-
Loved this book!!!
- By Madison Ketelaars on 2024-04-17
Written by: Sierra Greer
-
Long Island Compromise
- A Novel
- Written by: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety. But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all.
Written by: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
-
Same as It Ever Was
- A Novel
- Written by: Claire Lombardo
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin
- Length: 18 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Julia Ames, after a youth marked by upheaval and emotional turbulence, has found herself on the placid plateau of mid-life. But Julia has never navigated the world with the equanimity of her current privileged class. Having nearly derailed herself several times, making desperate bids for the kind of connection that always felt inaccessible to her, she finally feels, at age fifty seven, that she has a firm handle on things. She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next.
-
-
Childish story of stay at home mom
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-10-23
Written by: Claire Lombardo
-
Motherthing
- Written by: Ainslie Hogarth
- Narrated by: Adina Verson
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Ralph and Abby Lamb move in with Ralph’s mother, Laura, Abby hopes it’s just what she and her mother-in-law need to finally connect. After a traumatic childhood, Abby is desperate for a mother figure, especially now that she and Ralph are trying to become parents themselves. Abby just has so much love to give—to Ralph, to Laura, and to Mrs. Bondy, her favorite resident at the long-term care home where she works. But Laura isn’t interested in bonding with her daughter-in-law. She’s venomous and cruel, especially to Abby, and life with her is hellish.
-
-
Fresh & lightly funny
- By CWickstrom on 2024-09-15
Written by: Ainslie Hogarth
-
Ghosts
- A Novel
- Written by: Dolly Alderton
- Narrated by: Holliday Grainger
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nina Dean is not especially bothered that she's single. She owns her own apartment, she's about to publish her second book, she has a great relationship with her ex-boyfriend, and enough friends to keep her social calendar full and her hangovers plentiful. And when she downloads a dating app, she does the seemingly impossible: She meets a great guy on her first date. Max is handsome and built like a lumberjack; he has floppy blond hair and a stable job. But more surprising than anything else, Nina and Max have chemistry.
-
-
Keeps you intrigued
- By Amazon Customer on 2024-06-16
Written by: Dolly Alderton
-
Going Zero
- A Novel
- Written by: Anthony McCarten
- Narrated by: Marin Ireland
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test a ground-breaking piece of spyware. FUSION can track anyone on earth. But does it work? For one contestant, an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day, the stakes are far higher than money, and her reasons for entering the test more personal than anyone imagines. When the timer hits zero, there will only be one winner…
-
-
Extraordinary
- By Micah Clark on 2023-07-23
Written by: Anthony McCarten
-
Bright Young Women
- A Novel
- Written by: Jessica Knoll
- Narrated by: Sutton Foster, Imani Jade Powers, Corey Brill, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Masterfully blending elements of psychological suspense and true crime, Jessica Knoll—author of the bestselling novel Luckiest Girl Alive and the writer behind the Netflix adaption starring Mila Kunis—delivers a new and exhilarating thriller in Bright Young Women. The book opens on a Saturday night in 1978, hours before a soon-to-be-infamous murderer descends upon a Florida sorority house with deadly results. The lives of those who survive, including sorority president and key witness, Pamela Schumacher, are forever changed.
-
-
Creepily good story
- By catherine on 2024-07-04
Written by: Jessica Knoll
-
The Wren, the Wren
- Written by: Anne Enright
- Narrated by: Anne Enright, Aoife Duffin, Owen Roe, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nell McDaragh never knew her grandfather, the celebrated Irish poet Phil McDaragh. But his love poems seem to speak directly to her. Restless and wryly self-assured, at twenty-two Nell leaves her mother Carmel’s orderly home to find her own voice as a writer (mostly online, ghost-blogging for an influencer) and to live a poetical life. As she chases obsessive love, damage, and transcendence, in Dublin and beyond, her grandfather’s poetry seems to guide her home.
-
-
Narrated beautifully
- By MG BG on 2023-11-27
Written by: Anne Enright
What the critics say
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK: VOGUE, ELECTRIC LIT, SHE READS • FEATURED AS A SUMMER READING PICK BY GOOP, NEW YORK POST, NYLON, SCARY MOMMY, AND NEWSDAY
“Exuberant, bitingly satirical….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….O’Donoghue steers us toward reckonings large and small, her hand steady on the tiller….A gratifying, accomplished novel.”—Hamilton Cain, The New York Times
"O’Donoghue [has] got my full attention....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....Profoundly satisfying....O’Donoghue has found a way to tell this story in scenes both heartbreaking and funny. She illuminates these Irish lives with a light all her own."—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Who knew the financial crisis could be so … fun? Don’t get me wrong, The Rachel Incident gets into some heavy themes–class, sexual identity, abortion, to name a few–but this book navigates a young Irishwoman’s chaotic early 20s, during a specific economic moment, with a cozy warmth that had me laughing out loud throughout. This is one of those catch-yourself-smiling-without-realizing-it books–and one I think I’ll go back to, the next time I just want to feel like it’s all going to be OK."—Miles Parks, NPR
What listeners say about The Rachel Incident
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-07-27
Deeply complex, heartfelt and funny.
Loved the characters and the world of this book. The narrator brings it all life. Will listen again! One of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2024-04-04
Perfection!
such a great book! I really enjoyed how it probed hot button issues without being heavy-handed. The narrators accent was beautiful and made me enjoy the story even more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- alison Moorwood
- 2024-05-31
Loved it
I loved the human side of this story, the characters and unpredictably. The narrator had a perfect voice.
One of my favourite audiobooks this year alongside Eleanor Oliphant is just fine.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jackie v
- 2023-10-21
Loved it
A great listen, highly recommended if you enjoyed Sally Rooney (but I’d say this is more accessible and funny)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Theodora
- 2023-08-31
raw and remarkable
There is a realness in the writing that makes this book stick to your bones long beyond finishing it. Rachel and both Jameses are characters that you can dare to dislike in moments because they are so loveable and so realistic. Haven't we all had those relationships that exist between unspoken boundaries? The narrator was the perfect choice, too. Hope to see more come from the author. Shelving it next to "Normal People" as an overall favourite.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Di
- 2024-03-10
Intelligent look at relationships in your twenties
I think this is a great look at surviving your twenties and all the loneliness, desperation and bad mistakes that accompany it. It was definitely elevated above your standard "chicklit" with intelligent story, dialogue and meaning, but at the same time, it was very readable.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2023-09-15
I laughed, I panged, I relished
The writing is beautiful, the characters are palpable and the audio narration is perfect for this Irish woman’s story. My favourite of the year so far.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!