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elizabitch 's review for:
The Rachel Incident
by Caroline O'Donoghue
I am so mixed on this!!!
I think it's a great representation of early 20s college kids. So much so that I wanted to shake Rachel for her immaturity, her lack of her own personality, her codependent mistakes. There were several times I considered turning the audiobook off because I couldn't stand listening to her stumble through another mistake easily solved with communication. I experienced a lot of secondhand embarrassment on her behalf. But it was also incredibly accurate for that age and I uncomfortably saw my younger self mirrored (and didn't like it.) But then O'Donoghue would slip in a statement or observation of life of something I'd experienced or thought and assumed nobody else had, expressed with such frankness that I never would have thought someone would admit to also feeling, and I was won over again.
My criticisms: something about a straight woman telling a gay man's story from a straight woman's point of view felt gross. I understand it's modeled off of her own friendship but I still felt that outsider feeling I get when talking to allies who won't ever really understand. According to an article she wrote, it's supposed to be a refutation of the "gay best friend" trope but it doesn't actually do that and further cements that trope. Rachel is stuck so far up her own ass that never really stops to think about how James feels, she absconds his story and makes it her own.
My other problem is the lack of any female friendships until the last 10%. Young Rachel has such misogyny towards her own gender, and can only seem to connect to men, that it's off-putting. She supposedly becomes a feminist journalist but we don't actually get to see that development happen and it's very hard to believe.
I think it's a great representation of early 20s college kids. So much so that I wanted to shake Rachel for her immaturity, her lack of her own personality, her codependent mistakes. There were several times I considered turning the audiobook off because I couldn't stand listening to her stumble through another mistake easily solved with communication. I experienced a lot of secondhand embarrassment on her behalf. But it was also incredibly accurate for that age and I uncomfortably saw my younger self mirrored (and didn't like it.) But then O'Donoghue would slip in a statement or observation of life of something I'd experienced or thought and assumed nobody else had, expressed with such frankness that I never would have thought someone would admit to also feeling, and I was won over again.
My criticisms: something about a straight woman telling a gay man's story from a straight woman's point of view felt gross. I understand it's modeled off of her own friendship but I still felt that outsider feeling I get when talking to allies who won't ever really understand. According to an article she wrote, it's supposed to be a refutation of the "gay best friend" trope but it doesn't actually do that and further cements that trope. Rachel is stuck so far up her own ass that never really stops to think about how James feels, she absconds his story and makes it her own.
My other problem is the lack of any female friendships until the last 10%. Young Rachel has such misogyny towards her own gender, and can only seem to connect to men, that it's off-putting. She supposedly becomes a feminist journalist but we don't actually get to see that development happen and it's very hard to believe.