“Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s not remarkable.”
There’s something about grief that resists being neatly written about, and Loved One leans fully into that. No two people experience grief in the same way.
The story follows Julia as she navigates the grief of unexpectedly losing her first-love-turned-best-friend (and world-famous indie musician), Gabe, aged 29. Leaving her native LA, Julia heads to London to collect the possessions he left scattered across friends and acquaintances; this quest slowly becomes something else entirely. A kind of searching. For him, for answers, for a version of their story that still makes sense.
What is captured so brilliantly is the kind of grief that doesn’t “fit.” Julia isn’t the girlfriend, not really, but she isn’t not either. Their relationship exists in that in-between space, and so her grief does too. It’s messy, undefined, and at times completely unhinged in a way that feels deeply, painfully real.
Elizabeth, Gabe’s ex, is the perfect counterweight to Julia, effortlessly cool, self-contained, everything Julia feels she isn’t. Their dynamic is one of my favourite parts of the book: tense, awkward, occasionally sharp, but threaded with small, flickering moments of understanding.
They’re both grieving the same person, but from entirely different angles.
And watching them try to reconcile that, to understand each other, and themselves, is where the story really lands. The backdrop to this setting in London is also a really nice touch, a love letter to London almost!
No spoilers here, because I think you need to go in with an open mind to flawed characters and great literary fiction, albeit it niche. Aisha Muharrar is an Emmy-nominated writer for HBO’s Hacks and NBC’s Parks and Recreation, so she can make it brilliantly funny and light-hearted while exploring a big topic.
Overall, this is a gorgeous read, full of small wisdoms.
