Loved One

by Aisha Muharrar

When Julia’s first-love-turned-best-friend Gabe, a musician with a cultish following, dies unexpectedly at age twenty-nine, Julia launches herself into an intercontinental quest to recover the possessions he left with friends and acquaintances across the world. Along the way she encounters Elizabeth, Gabe’s effortlessly perfect and endlessly cool ex-girlfriend. Now Julia can’t stop talking to, thinking about, and googling Elizabeth. As the two women struggle to reconcile their respective claims on Gabe’s memory, can they find their way from rivalry to friendship?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Grief, Romance, Adult Fiction, Audiobook

336 pages, Hardcover

First published August 12, 2025

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

something about this cover is just telling me i'll like this book.

and i did!

(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)

[Maddie Marriott · Rating 4 out of 5]

yes ugly nasty grief… yes complicated friendship dynamics… yes…

[Jace · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ // Such a beautiful and layered story of love and grief— you follow two women Julia and Elizabeth as they share their complicated history with Gabe, a musician who passed away suddenly at 29. LOVED the growth we saw from each woman as they grieved a life of “what could have beens.” The writing was captivating and honest— I highly recommend!

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC :)

[Celine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved One returned to me the feeling of sick days and comfort movies in bed. It’s funny, heart-wrenching, and a total breath of fresh air.

It begins with a funeral—Julia has just lost her best friend Gabe, who unexpectedly passes away, while on tour with his band.

This devastates Julia, especially because her and Gabe hadn’t been speaking before he died.

When she’s given the opportunity to track down some of his lost belongings for his mother, she takes it. Which is how she ends up at a restaurant in London, owned by the last woman Gabe was ever in love with.

I couldn’t put this one down. I laughed, teared up, and immediately wanted more from the author, as soon as I finished. A delight!

[Susie Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

{thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this book!}

I liked Loved One, but didn't love it. It sounded like a book straight up my alley, but I think I ultimately found the whole premise the book was built on to be a little empty.

Julia's first love and now best friend Gabe passes away very suddenly. He's a very successful musician and relatively famous amongst his cult-like following. When Julia and Gabe's mother realize some of his possessions are missing, Julia makes it her mission to find them and she thinks there's a good chance they're with his most recent ex-girlfriend.

I totally understand why a bereaved mother and best friend would want all of their loved ones possessions back, but there was something odd (to me) about the desperation they had to get back a guitar, hat, some sheet music, and a bracelet. To the point Julia literally gets on a plane to another country to basically stalk the ex-girlfriend. Grief makes people do some wild things I guess. Gabe's mother also drove me a bit crazy in how she communicated with Julia. But again, I suppose that can be chalked up to grief.

I did enjoy the progression of the plot and the growth and revelations the characters experience as the novel goes on. A story that starts with a lot of questions ends with lots of answers and I really appreciate that.

I also enjoyed Aisha Muharrar's writing style and would certainly read more from her!

[cyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Novel Visits · Rating 4 out of 5]

@vikingbooks | #gifted I have the perfect book to round out your summer reading: 𝗟𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗗 𝗢𝗡𝗘 by Aisha Muharrar. This novel is a love story, but in no sense a traditional one. It’s the story of Gabe, an indie musician just starting to get a serious following. As the book opens, Gabe has died in a tragic accident at only 29. Left behind are his mom, a plethora of friends, and two women who knew and loved him in very different ways. Gabe was Julia’s first love when they were both only 18. They’d remained close friends ever since. Elizabeth didn’t have that kind of history with Gabe, but had been in a sometimes rocky relationship with him more recently. Each woman holds pieces of who Gabe was that the other desperately wants.⁣
⁣
I was impressed with the way 𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘖𝘯𝘦 unfolded. The focus was fully on the women, the different versions of pain and loss each felt. Julia narrates, but Elizabeth’s perspective is still strong. For obvious reasons, theirs was an antagonistic relationship, but also one that couldn’t be avoided. While it was a story of grief, it was handled with a surprisingly deft touch and a welcome dose of understanding. ⁣
⁣
Initially, I felt like the book might be a little surface level, but I was quite wrong. In a masterful way, Muharrar built a story that, layer by layer, revealed answers to both Julia’s and Elizabeth’s questions, as well as my own. Along the way readers also learned more and more about Gabe. Though not as dark, this reminded me a bit of 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘵 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 by Claire Daverly, both excellent debuts. I know I’ll be among the first in line for whatever Muharrar writes next. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫⁣

[Aimee LaGrandeur · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me 🤝 a grief book

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia has just lost her best friend Gabe after an accident. He was only 29 years old, and in an indie rock band. At the funeral she connects with Gabe’s most recent ex-girlfriend Elizabeth. Both women have secrets they aren’t sharing, but both of them have reasons to collect the most important items from Gabe’s life, his medical bracelet, sheet music, and his guitar.

The unlikely pair takes a long time to trust each other as they set out to hunt these horcruxes. On the way they learn more about each other and who Gabe was to others.

A millennial grief novel to remember, this book has good characterization and dialogue. Grief, it’s said, comes in waves. And so does the structure and plot of this novel. It’s very reflective and intensely readable. A senseless death that just happened. We never know when a random accident can take a friend. This book really leaned into the theme that the people we know are totally different to others. The Gabe that Julia knew was different than the Gabe that Elizabeth knew, and the Gabe that his fans knew.

I was rooting for Julia and Elizabeth all the way.

[ari · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 - this didn’t do anything for me & I found it kind of boring. The author’s frequent use of “bwahayhay” was distracting & I didn’t know what it was supposed to reference (laughing?). The characters were all just okay. Love the cover though.

[Simon S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Julia is eighteen when she meets Gabe—first love, then close friend—at a party in Barcelona. Their connection is immediate, the kind that shapes a person, lingering even as life moves forward. Twelve years later, Julia meets Elizabeth, Gabe’s most recent ex, at his funeral. The encounter is brief but unsettling, leaving Julia with a flood of questions about Gabe—their shared past, the person he became, and the version of him she never got to know.

When Gabe’s mother asks Julia to retrieve sentimental items from the London home he once shared with Elizabeth, Julia sees an opportunity—not just to honor Gabe’s memory, but to meet Elizabeth again.

What starts as a simple task turns into a compelling search for understanding. As Julia and Elizabeth orbit each other, drawn together by grief and unspoken truths, they fall into a delicate dance of revelation and restraint. Neither of them is telling the full story, and both have more at stake than they admit.

In a beautifully layered novel that spans a young adult’s formative years, Europe, the US, and the ever-shifting landscape of love, Muharrar brings a perceptive and emotionally astute eye to the nuances of relationships—both romantic and platonic - and the devastating mechanics of grief.

Loving someone means accepting that different versions of them exist—some we know intimately, others we may never fully understand. The past isn’t always neat or logical; memories shift, perspectives clash, and the truth is rarely just one thing. And feelings—especially the deepest ones—don’t simply disappear. They linger, shaping us, pulling us back, reminding us that love, in all its complexity, never truly leaves.

This is an assured and rewarding debut novel that resonates long after the final page—an absorbing, funny, and touching exploration of grief, love, memory, and the emotional echoes that shape us.

I loved the tone of this and the fluency with which Muharrar depicts Julia’s anger and pain in all their stages, and the clarity at which she arrives.

[Aurora · Rating 5 out of 5]

the kind of book that feels like a friend pulling you into the kitchen at a party to tell you the wildest story.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.50 stars.

Julia's best friend (and former lover) dies unexpectedly, and vows to get back a special bracelet for his mom, that she swears his past girlfriend Elizabeth still is harboring. Only problem - Elizabeth is in London and doesn't know Julia.

While the parts about grief were really well written, it was the friendship between Julia and Elizabeth I just couldn't get into. There were supposed to be funny parts, like are we really supposoed to believe some of these just happen?

Regardless, I ended up skimming through to the end and enjoyed the happiness the both eventually find.

[Leanne Hale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bumping up to 4.5 stars
I have had a summer full of books that have surprised me- and all in good ways! This is another one. It turned out to be very different from what I expected, and at first I was disappointed, then so happy. This felt new and fresh, and I ended up loving it.

Julia's first love and now best friend, Gabe, a professional musician, dies suddenly in a freak accident. Prior to his death, they were in awkward, difficult phase of their relationship, which also makes Julia's grief over his loss complicated. On top of that, as a favor to Gabe's mother, Julia volunteers to travel to London to find Gabe's current girlfriend, Elizabeth, in an effort to get some of his most sentimental belongings back. This follows Julia on her journey and the relationship that forms between her and Elizabeth.

Grief is hard. Complicated grief is harder, and when things were left unfinished prior to a sudden death... well, it's just a lot. Muharrar, an Emmy winning television writer (she wrote the Parks and Rec Galentine's Day episode!) gets this so right, and without melodrama. I actually went in thinking this might be literary, but it it's definitely more upmarket, contemporary fiction. At first, I was afraid I'd walked into a cliche "chick lit" book, but thankfully I was wrong. Once I settled into the tone, I loved it. Muharrar gives these women grieving Gabe so much dignity, and they are full human beings outside of their relationships with him. They aren't catfighting and competing- they are all sorting their grief and their feelings about Gabe. Julia in particular has to confront many things she'd rather not.

"I could see Gabe again. Not the moments when I was most upset or conflicted about him, but all of Gabe, fully. Which even for a brief moment I could not take."

This publishes 8/12, and I highly recommend it.

[Daria | dariasbooked · Rating 4 out of 5]

grief x complicated relationships core

felt some similarities to Talking At Night!

[nestle • whatnestleread · Rating 5 out of 5]

Julia is carrying a kind of loss that doesn’t fit neatly into any category—Gabe wasn’t her boyfriend, not really, but he wasn’t just a friend either. Their bond existed in this in between space, which makes his sudden absence even harder to define.

When she travels to London to pack up what’s left of his life, the task seems straightforward, but of course it isn’t. She keeps discovering versions of Gabe that belonged to other people, and the process forces her to not only deal with her own feelings for him, but also with the way love and memory rarely align as cleanly as we want them to.

What I loved most is how the book refuses to flatten grief into a emotion. It’s sad, yes, but also funny, tender, frustrating, and sometimes even absurd. Julia’s interactions with Elizabeth, Gabe’s ex, capture all of that perfectly. They circle the same loss from very different angles, and watching them clash and connect gives the novel its sharpest, most moving moments. There’s tension, awkwardness, and also these fleeting sparks of understanding.

The flashbacks to Gabe and Julia's past build this layered portrait of who Gabe was and why he mattered, while also highlighting how elusive the “truth” about a person can be. No one has the full picture, and that feels incredibly honest. The story doesn't doesn’t let Julia romanticize him or reduce him to a single role; instead, it acknowledges that love is complicated, even when it’s real.

Loved One is about how messy love and memory really are. It makes you wonder if we ever actually know the people we’re closest to, or if what we feel for them is mostly colored by our own needs. Muharrar’s writing is beautiful, and she nails both the thrill of young love and the complicated weight of adult relationships.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I know that grief takes practice. And I'm patient with myself. Even though death happens all the time, no one could ever be a natural at this."

Gabe was Julia's first love. Over a decade ago, they shared an intimate, innocent romance one brief summer in Barcelona, but even though it didn't work out, they became and remained best friends.

Now 30, Julia is a successful jewelry maker and Gabe is a popular indie artist - following the dream he had all those years ago, when Julia first heard that beautiful voice of stranger she couldn't place for weeks singing at the university campus courtyard.

Tragically, Gabe passes away in his hotel room in LA after a show one night at 29. Grief-stricken and filled with questions, Julia goes on a trip to London to confront Gabe's most recent ex, Elizabeth, about something eerie she said in the bathroom at Gabe's funeral, and try to gain possession of some of the belongings he left back in London.

This book was amazing. There were constant flashbacks to times when Gabe was alive, so I felt like I really got to know and love him, flawed as he was, which made me feel like I was grieving as much as Julia and Elizabeth. There was a mystery element to the story with Julia going to find Elizabeth and figure out what she meant by what she said in the bathroom, and I loved getting to know little by little the truth of both of their experiences with Gabe.

One minute, they were bonding over their grief, and the next, they were back to fighting because of the truth of their secrets. Grief really does come in waves, and they were mad at Gabe, themselves, and life, but took it out on each other.

The book allowed for major introspection and reflection on life in general, the people who matter most, and how worth it it is to hold grudges - spoiler: it's not.

It was a very realistic take on grief and love and all the what ifs that go on in your mind when you lose someone close to you. Highly recommend.

[Brittany Gerberich · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* rounded down
I was hooked from the first page, but I found the changing timeline to be quite tedious by the end. I felt the same way about most of the characters. I did love how realistically the author described grief and the grieving process.

Thanks NetGalley and Penguin for providing me with an ARC!

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A standout debut about one woman's grief over losing her friend slash musician lover far too soon and the weeks following his death where she enters a one-upmanship competition with the woman carrying his unborn baby.

The mental health/grief rep in this book is excellent, I'm a suck for a friends to lovers, angst filled story and this had that in spades. Told through flashbacks we slowly learn how the relationships evolved and played out as Julia and Elizabeth compete to see who knew Gabe better and who loved him most. Honest, raw and compelling as hell.

This was also great on audio narrated by Emma Ladji. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and @prhaudio for a complimentary ALC in exchange for my honest review. Recommended for fans of books like Daisy Jones and the six or The lightning bottles by Marissa Stapley.

[Alexandra Barkerová · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 🌟 - just because flying to London from LA to stalk ur best friends's ex is a bit unrealistic, but other than that it was a unique and exciting plot and a perfect beach read

[emily faye · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

[Caleb North · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Grief comes in waves yes. But first you have to step in the water”

This book was funny, messy, and deeply moving all at the same time. I adored Muharrar’s writing style and the exploration of first love, friendship, and grief.

[Georgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

emotional and beautiful. i found this book a little slow to start but once it finds its rhythm, the characters all become so vivid and perfectly imperfect and i spent much of the end wishing that the death centering the novel could somehow be undone. there were some beautiful ways place was used- london, barcelona, and death valley all felt like they really matched the kind of love stories being told- barcelona for that wild youth, london to see what it would be like to have a grounded adult love, and death valley to get away from the world together.

[Edna Foster · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh, @netgalley, I really wanted to like this one. The synopsis sounded so good. Young woman sets out on a quest to retrieve her first boyfriend’s scattered possessions after he dies suddenly. Oh, there was a lot more to the story and I actually found the “falling in love in Barcelona” bit kind of sweet, but this protagonist. Julia. Ugh. She could not have been any more unlikable. She was not particularly self aware and very vapid. She is the kind of person I would avoid in my own life, so watching her lies and bad decisions was just hard for me. I get that I’m probably not the target audience for this book. Let’s see what the youngsters think. Being published any day now.

[Rachel Romanczukiewicz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an interesting exploration of love and loss, and the questions that often remain when you lose a loved one. I enjoyed reading about Gabe and Julia's past and how not only their relationship blossomed, but how each of them were able to grow into their own creative spaces. I feel that this is a story that will be relatable to anyone who has considered a relationship with a friend, but felt held back, or maybe it didn't work out for some reason or the other. I feel like this book evokes a lot of emotion that many young adults will be able to relate to, and it's overall really well written. I would look forward to reading other works by the same author.

Thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC!

[Jessica O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not surprised the writer is associated with great tv show writing, because this book is able to be both funny and emotionally engaging. The author is so generous with all of her characters, they feel like real people you might run into. The story also has a mystery element which happily surprised me.

I’d recommend this book for fans of Rufi Thorpe, The Good Place, or Fleabag.

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was at turns funny, moving, sweet and insightful. It was a beautiful exploration of grief, love, art, and relationships of all kinds. I feel it is something that will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you NetGalley for the review copy!

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really surprised by the hype around this book. The writing is fine but if you’ve read much New Adult, you’ve read many versions of this already.

There’s some discussion to be had about how shopworn the claim of “realistic explorations of grief” has become, but I’m not sure it’s even apt here. I suppose in the vague sense that grief makes people do some odd things, sure, but no, I did not find the continent-spanning travels to recover the deceased’s lost possessions to be an especially realistic depiction of grief.

And the thing is, I didn’t especially need or even want said depiction of grief to enjoy this book, I just needed it to be more engaging, more observant, and probably buoyed by a lot more humor.

I suppose it’s a perfectly fine and nicely written trip to places we’ve been many times in fiction, but it’s hard to get excited about a book that doesn’t take us anywhere new.

*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

[eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

When Julia’s first-love-turned-best-friend Gabe, a successful indie musician, dies unexpectedly aged 29, Julia launches herself into an intercontinental quest to recover the possessions he left with friends and acquaintances across the world. The search for these items leads Julia to Elizabeth, the last woman Gabe loved, in an interaction that leaves Julia with more questions than answers about Gabe and their shared history. And now, Julia can’t stop talking to, thinking about and googling Elizabeth.

Messy, complicated, emotional. Such a beautiful portrayal of love and loss, and a journey towards healing. The bond that forms between Julia and Elizabeth was such an highlight for me. It's such a bittersweet read, so honest and raw, with funny moments that perfectly balance out all the emotional ones. The pacing was a little weird, definitely a little slow at first and it took me a while to get into it, but once I did and found my footing, I couldn't put it down.

Many thanks to 4th Estate and William Collins & NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

[Jasmine Nicholson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Messy, complicated grief + messy complicated female friendship = a good read.

I really enjoyed this. the messy complicated relationship between Julia and Elizabeth, two important women in recently passed Gabes life, them developing this relationship over time influenced by grief and love for the same person. I also loved reading about Julia and Gabes relationship over the years, which was equally messy. Very real, flawed characters and showcasing how messy and complicated grief really is.

This comes out August 14th, thank you to the publisher for an advance copy in exchanged for an honeys review