Here’s a fun novel, published last year. The Rachel Incident, by Caroline O’Donoghue, is about a college student who works at a bookstore along with her best friend. It’s about them and their love interests—and there’s tons of drama where that’s concerned. Also, the book is set in Ireland, and some fun Irish slang is tossed around. And this novel is very funny. O’Donoghue has a knack for writing humorously vivid prose. Sometimes I recommend difficult-to-read books, but this is not that. It’s almost pure fun.
But not quite, and that’s a good thing: the novel has hard-hitting themes. The characters are living through the major financial downturn that started in 2008 in the U.S. and spread to Europe thereafter. Making money is nearly always hard for 19- and 20-year-olds, and it’s especially so in this time and place. Furthermore, one of the characters is in need of an abortion and, due to strict Irish laws, must travel to England. It’s yet another expense that she has no idea how she’s going to pay.
Here’s a sample from the beginning of the novel, in which the protagonist, Rachel, tells her mom that she’s moving in with her best friend. I love how this character is so self-deprecating, while watching herself be wildly assertive. It’s the perfect portrait of a young woman who has just hit adulthood, still unsure about making her own decisions, but insisting on making them anyway:
“‘I’m moving out,’ I announced, and my mother looked at me like I had smashed a jar of pasta sauce on the floor and was now hopping over it, with the excuse that I had a taxi waiting outside. . . . The tactlessness. It makes me want to climb into a car and set myself on fire.”
Aren’t those fabulous metaphors? I love this book. It’s smart and sassy. Just the way we book readers like it.
Were you self-deprecating and wildly assertive at that age?
