As well as being a New York Times bestselling young adult novelist,[1] she has also worked as a columnist (most notably for the Irish Examiner and Harper's Bazaar), and has a podcast, Sentimental Garbage.
O'Donoghue's debut novel Promising Young Women was published in 2018 by Little, Brown and received favourable reviews, with The Irish Times comparing her to Sally Rooney and Rosita Sweetman[2] and The London Magazine saying that her writing style was both "original and engaging".
[5] It was described by The Washington Post as "heartbreaking and funny" with Ron Charles noting "she may not have Binchy's sweetness, but she illuminates these Irish lives with a light all her own".
[1] In 2024 The Rachel Incident was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction.
[8] O'Donoghue started the Sentimental Garbage podcast in 2018, which deals with popular culture, especially women's fiction.