--- description: Find out why "The Rachel Incident" by Caroline O’Donoghue is on TIME's list of the must-read books of the year. title: 'The Rachel Incident' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2023 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362ddb3d084a2266/698a41fb929fad3ab1bfa564/TheRachelIncident.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 14, 2023 # The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  It’s Ireland in 2010, and Rachel Murray is a college student living in a run-down apartment with her cheeky—and closeted—friend James. They both have dreams of a better life, one outside the city of Cork. Rachel spends her days in class, enduring a schoolgirl crush on her professor Fred; but he has his eye on someone else—Rachel’s roommate. While James and Fred’s affair takes off, Rachel cycles through bad boyfriends, and Ireland’s economy plummets in the background. Fast forward to modern-day London, where Rachel is working as a journalist, covering abortion access in her home country. She’s married, pregnant, and toiling away on a story when she learns that Fred is in a coma. Caroline O’Donoghue’s second novel flips between the past and present as Rachel is catapulted back in time to her college flat. _The Rachel Incident_ encompasses what it means to be a very specific age during a very specific era in a very specific place. It’s a coming of age story, but also ultimately a love story—revealed in starkly funny and heartbreaking turns. —_Meg Zukin_ **Buy Now**: _The Rachel Incident_ on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9780593535707 "undefined") | [Amazon ](https://amzn.to/49rVv9y "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/"},"headline":"The Rachel Incident","datePublished":"2023-11-14T12:30:40.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T00:25:05.767Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/","keywords":["Books","list","best books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362ddb3d084a2266/698a41fb929fad3ab1bfa564/TheRachelIncident.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt362ddb3d084a2266/698a41fb929fad3ab1bfa564/TheRachelIncident.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/","name":"The Rachel Incident"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME's 100 Must-Read Books of 2023","description":"","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/WppeqCEz/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-11-13T19:20:52.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WppeqCEz.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/","duration":"PT1M28S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/must-read-books-2023/6332218/the-rachel-incident/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```