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Book 46 of 2025



Thank you to @NetGalley for a copy of ‘Loved One’ and what a way to start September’s reading off.

Our main character, so it seems, is rockstar Gabe who dies aged 29 in a hotel room. No drug overdose for Gabe - he slipped coming out of the bath.

The book opens with his funeral where his first love Julia reads the eulogy and recounts her friendship which has spanned a decade. Whilst there, she recognises a familiar ring on the hand of a British woman, Elizabeth. Cue Julia hunting down Elizabeth to relocate Gabe’s lost possessions including sheet music, a guitar and a bracelet which intrinsically links her and Gabe.

Aisha Muharrar has created a book with grief at the core and an unlikely friendship bewtween Gabe’s lovers Julia and Elizabeth. The writing is warm, touching and full of heart. Despite it being about grief and moving on, it has comedic moments and characters that you have to love despite their flaws.

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I really, highly enjoyed this book. I love books about grief, I love books about different friendship dynamics. And this was such a good exploration of those. I really loved the way this was written, and I found it so easy to pick up. It was emotional, but it was funny at the same time. Despite the heavy themes, the humour made light of them at moments which made it a lot easier to read.

I'd recommend this book to people who enjoy Talking at Night by Clare Daverley or Fleabag.

I loved this book. The main character Julia goes on a journey through grief after her first love Gabe dies suddenly at 29 years of age. It may not sound like a lot of fun but the humour is sharp and the book is somehow wise and insightful in a most unexpected way. A beautiful book.

A total joy of a book. I’n the days since I finished reading, I’ve found myself missing Julia and Elizabeth multiple times, and wondering what they’re up to now. For a book with an inherently sad premise, it still manages to hold so much hope and humour - I loved it *and* enjoyed it, which for a book about dearth and grief I think is quite rare.

I adored this book. It was charming and funny and heartbreaking all at once. It is strange for a book that is essentially about grief to be a page turner, but I was completely enchanted by Julia and her relationship with Gabe. Beautiful, clear and tender writing. Loved it!

This is a beautifully-written novel about grief and friendship. I enjoyed that the plot was moved along by the search for belongings, and out of that blossomed a new relationship.

When Julia’s first-love-turned-close-friend Gabe dies unexpectedly Julia is launched into an intercontinental quest to recover his lost possessions.

A witty exploration of grief and heartache. The wish for just one more conversation in the hope of getting all the answers.

i think the biggest thing that muharrar gets right is the idea that when people go through grief, it's easier to craft narratives that suit us even if the truth is so apparent. that's why i couldn't bring myself to hate any of the characters because each one of them have a complexity that feels so raw. i personally related a lot to julia as someone who feels embarrassed to be honest about people i love sometimes when in reality it could be so easy if we just let it. people who have pondered about what it would be like to take the next step with someone who is a friend (but really a best friend or a life partner) will really be affected by regret that can build i think. that certainty was the case for me.

I loved this! I am a total sucker for books about complicated relationships between women but Aisha Muharrar has managed to create something that felt wholly unique and moving. With Gabe as a connecting presence throughout; Elizabeth and Julia’s slightly tense but intriguing relationship at the centre of the book was a joy to read. Julia should have been a difficult character to love, fundamentally in denial for most of the book, i nonetheless really felt her grieving process felt true even through bizarre coincidences. This book ambled through processing and memory and ended up as an exploration of lost possibilities and uncertainty and argues for grace for that confusion and for building forward.

The great Maggie Shipstead called this “the funniest book you’ll ever read about grief” and she was right!
“Loved One”, Aisha Muharrar’s debut novel, is one of those stories that has you holding back laughter in one page and tears in the next. The setup is this: when Julia’s first love turned best friend, Gabe, passes away in an accident, she offers to recover his belongings for his mother. Unfortunately, said belongings are in London, and the person best placed to help is Gabe’s ex, the artistic, effortlessly cool Elizabeth. As the two women embark on the quest to get back Gabe’s things, they’re made to confront who Gabe was to them, and the mark he’s left on their lives.
I found Julia to be such a sympathetic narrator. The depth of character and emotional intelligence evident in Muharrar’s screenwriting is fully on display here, as we see Julia grappling with a loss she’s completely unprepared for and trying to keep the life she’s built afloat. Elizabeth, too, is so layered — in the hands of a lesser writer, she could have easily been a manic pixie dream girl stereotype, but here you see her going through both the sadness and the anger of complex grief. It is impossible not to root for the two of them to find a way to reconcile their memories of Gabe and to be able to give each other some solace. And of course, I was desperate for them to succeed in recovering Gabe’s things — but I won’t spoil anything about their quest.
The writing in this is delicious too, witty and sharp in its characterisation of the people Julia and Elizabeth encounter along the way; piercing when it captures the enormity of unexpected loss. The building of the complex friendship between Julia and Gabe is so believable and made all the more touching by the knowledge, from the start, that their time together will be cut far too short. Muharrar’s eye for detail and for the tragicomic is enviable, and it made the story incredibly readable even through the heaviest moments.
When I finished this, I had tears in my eyes, and it’s one of those books that I had to have a bit of a cry about after I read the last page. But like all the best things in life, the things I loved about it made the sad moments worth it.

We learn of the death of musician Gabe before stepping back in time with the mother of his unborn child and another friend and learn how they deal with grief. At times humorous and at times harrowing but a lovely book well worth reading. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

"Loved One" is a well written book that didn't quite resonate with me. I was drawn to it because of its premise: finding the humour in grief. While I was intrigued by the concept, this book ultimately didn't quite land for me. Not every book is for every reader, and I just didn't fully connect with this story.

To its credit, the book is very well written. Muharrar has a clear and engaging voice, and the writing is easy to get lost in, making it a perfect companion for a lazy afternoon by the pool.

My main issue with this book was the frequent jumps in the timeline, which is a narrative device I generally find difficult to engage with. This, of course, is purely down to my own personal preferences.

Based on other reviews, this book seems to be a big hit with many readers. If you're interested in a character driven story exploring grief, which promises a comedic angle, then this book may very well be the one for you. It has clearly resonated very well with its intended audience to date, and despite it not fully being my cup of tea, I did find it enjoyable overall.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this book.

First of all, I want to draw attention to what a beautiful work of art this book is. I’d read the blurb and thought it looked interesting. Honestly, it was so much more than I expected.

We meet Julia and Elizabeth who were both a part of Gabe’s (who has died) life and how they are dealing with the aftermath of the event. I was torn up over the whole story and seeing how these two women come to terms with who they were to Gabriel and the affect it had on their lives.

It opens your eyes to the fact that you will never truly know someone even if you think you do. How they will be the same, but still so different with others. We see Elizabeth and Julia learn who Gabe was to them. How there were differences and how they had to deal with that.

It was such an emotionally touching book. A work of beauty. It’s been a long time since I’ve shed tears over fiction characters. This is one that is going to stick with me for a long time.

This is a heartbreakingly realistic display of grief - sometimes ugly, sometimes cruel, always powerful, never linear.
I can imagine how having a quest, something to fully focus on, could be very helpful as you try to accept the death of one of the most important people in your life, and so this book had a massive hit of relatability for me. Wanting to re-gather items that reminded you of that person and your shared experiences is understandable; you don't have them to hold any more, so you find the next best thing.
I found it refreshing that this wasn't a cinematic depiction of how to behave after a sudden death. Julia, Elizabeth and Gabe's mum each dealt with it differently, and sometimes it made them not the easiest to be around, which felt very authentic.
The use of different countries/places was used as a complement to how the individual relationships were at the time, and each suited the mood perfectly - this was really clever and worked brilliantly.
This book is melancholic but also uplifting.

4.25/5

A hard-hitting literary fiction about grieving a loved one, finding closure, and discovering how some people just aren’t who you expect them to be. The whole mood of this story is incredibly bittersweet as it starts with the death of a loved one, but I also like that it’s peppered with some sweet, happy memories and compelling personal secrets as well. I really liked following our protagonist, it’s not everyday you come across a self-aware and open-minded main character.

This book, Loved One by Aisha Muharrar, felt like a warm hug—but a slightly confusing one. It's funny and genuinely heart-wrenching, following Julia's mission to retrieve her late best friend Gabe's belongings. The author's writing is a total breath of fresh air, exploring grief and love with a real emotional depth. However, like other reviewers I have to admit, the entire premise felt a little strange to me. Julia's desperate quest to get a guitar and a few other trinkets felt a bit dramatic, and a mother's communications drove me a bit crazy. But I guess grief makes people do wild things. Despite that oddness, the plot and character growth were beautiful, and the way everything came together in the end was really satisfying. It's a rewarding debut, and I’ll definitely be reading more from this author.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

#LovedOne #NetGalley

A beautifully written novel about the complex emotions surrounding love, friendship and grief. Aisha Muharrar’s writing is simply like silk dripping off the page. It is very difficult to put down.

The plot opens at the funeral of Julia, the narrator's childhood friend Gabe. The two met while she was studying in Barcelona and he was tagging along with his mother, a poet. Despite Gabe going on to become a successful rock star and her a jeweler, the two remained close friends until they crossed the line by sleeping together. Following the event Julia is ghosted by him until one night when he suddenly calls and asks her to join him at a hotel. It would have been the last time she saw him as later that night at the age of 29 he was found dead after an accident in a hotel room.

Grief stricken, his mother asks Julia to return to London and find items belonging to her dead son. As she carries out this quest she is forced to meet with his ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth. What follows is a heart wrenching tale as the two learn to work together as they follow his footsteps retrieving items. Through their own grief they will bond and form a friendship. There are some lovely descriptions of London and Barcelona with a final touch of LA. This is a captivating story which will appeal to many and as such I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and 4th Estate and William Collins for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication

Loved One is definitely a new loved one of mine, that's for sure.

Beautiful but flawed characters, Love, loss, grief and friendships. A stunning story that flits between LA, London and Barcelona, as Julia tries to come to terms with the loss of her best friend, Gabe. We hear about their meeting, their brief romance and then their re-connections over the years as she revisits their past. But we hear about post-Gabe too; the people in her life, and his, as they are processing their own loss.

It's sad, but funny too. Julia is a brilliant lead, her tone and pace work perfectly for the story. I loved Elizabeth too although I wanted to hate her.

I've been in a rut for a while, I think this has broken it. Truly a remarkable piece of fiction.

This was an emotional read which was at times lightened by humour. It is about love, loss, friendship, memory and grief. The characters are very well depicted and relatable. An unusual choice for me but a book that kept me engrossed. Thank you Netgalley.

A beautifully written story about how messy and complicated grief can be. I enjoyed this a lot!

Thank you NetGalley for the early copy!