The Rachel Incident

O’Donoghue follows her protagonist as she experiments with different identities, attempting to find out who she really is. The novel demonstrates that self-discovery requires not only trial and error but honesty and self-compassion. Like many young people, Rachel enters college feeling insecure about her place in the world. She is attending university in the town she grew up in and feels trapped and resentful. Initially, she tries to become an intellectual, “serious to the point of dullness” (14). She chooses to work in the bookstore with a vague idea of becoming “the persona broadly known as Girl Who Works in Bookshop” (11). Rachel imagines that people who work in bookstores are clever, reserved, and highbrow. Her friendship with James begins to shatter that identity. She sees him as someone real, which is part of his attraction. She admits that she chose her English major with a vague idea that she is good at reading: “In the absence of any other discernible gift, it seemed like a fine thing to pursue, if only to receive more praise” (35). Realizing the emptiness of that pursuit, she tries to understand who she is and what she might care about besides the approval of others.

Later in the novel, she explores other avenues to self-knowledge, often in relationships with others around her. She parties with James, pursues a romance with Carey, and interns with Deenie. Each of these people shapes aspects of her personality, but Rachel struggles to be honest about her real interests and motivations, making it harder for her to learn more about herself. She eventually learns to set her own boundaries and make her own choices. Once she is living in London, truly alone for the first time, she starts to become her own person. O’Donoghue depicts the beginning of this revelation humorously when Rachel has to tell her creepy male roommate to leave her alone: “I could feel something happening within myself. I had told a stranger to fuck off, and I had meant it. I had drawn a line with someone. I had never really done that before” (256). Rachel stumbles into her career as a journalist through a series of mishaps, but it takes off when she connects her work to her personal experiences. First, she experiments with Twitter for the bookstore, then with fashion writing and more serious journalism. When she begins covering the fight for reproductive rights in Ireland—partly as a way to process the lingering trauma of her own failed pregnancy—she discovers both her professional and personal voice. James, too, spends his adult years experimenting with different ways of living, discovering through his mistakes and failures what he wants and who he is. Through these characters, the novel demonstrates that the path to growth and happiness lies through experience and honest self-exploration.