Loved One
Imagine finally hooking up with your first love, only for him to ghost you, and then die….
That is the premise of Loved One by Aisha Muharrar, a heartwarming, cheeky, adventurous, and tear-jerking novel about losing one of the great loves of your life.
The story follows Julia, a jewelry designer in Los Angeles, who learns from a stranger that her dear friend and sometimes-something-more, Gabe, has died in a hotel bathroom accident. Julia’s mind immediately floods with questions, but one towers above the rest: what does it mean that they finally slept together three weeks earlier and never talked about it?
Friend? First love? Ex? Best friend? One-night stand? Soulmate? Every label feels both wrong and incomplete.
While condolences pour in, Julia can only focus on defining what they were to each other. Driven by ambiguity and a bit of insanity, Julia begins a quest to collect some of Gabe’s lost possessions and to understand the parts of his life that existed outside their friendship. Her journey starts with an impulsive flight to London to visit Gabe’s most recent ex, Elizabeth. But no, Julia does not contact Elizabeth beforehand; some quick IG stalking reveals Elizabeth’s restaurant address, to which Julia shows up and hilariously insists that her appearance is a coincidence.
What struck me most about this novel was Julia’s desperate search to understand how Gabe felt about her, specifically through what he may have said about her to others. At first, her mission feels comically misguided. I kept thinking, “Obviously, it doesn’t matter what he told other people. Their relationship was bigger than that.”
But as I continued reading, I began to see myself in her. I thought about my own friendships and how validating it feels to hear that someone you love spoke warmly about you when you were not in the room. I also thought about how painful it feels to learn the opposite. Even though context is everything, our minds spiral, and relationships we believed were solid begin to wobble.
Why do we cling so tightly to other people’s interpretations of our relationships? Are we scared to ask our friends or lovers, “How do you really feel about me?” And even if we do ask, how can we know they will answer honestly?
This is where my empathy for Julia deepened. She is searching for something that cannot be found and can only be answered by someone who is now gone. Julia and Gabe never had the “what are we” conversation, a question that has been spiraling through Julia’s mind since they met in Barcelona as teenagers. All she has left are her own assumptions. Beyond the escapism and her humor, as readers, we can feel that Julia is heartbroken that she’ll never hear Gabe tell her she was always the one.
Sometimes I pass something that catches my eye, or ear, and I think Gabe would love this; or remember when, together, we loved that? I pause, grateful to run into him again.
An aspect of the novel that I am anxious to discuss at book club this week is Muharrar’s portrayal of Blackness. My book club only reads books by authors of color, and several people messaged me asking if Loved One had a Black protagonist. I suspect the novel’s neutral cover and universal title contributed to the question.
Muharrar, a Black American television writer, is known for shows such as Hacks, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. These shows include Black characters but do not center the Black experience. Muharrar’s gift lies in capturing the universal. Her Blackness neither limits nor defines her ability to do that.
I sense she approached Julia’s character the same way (though I’d love to ask her). Loved One is not a novel about being Black, but Julia is Black, so the story naturally includes a Black experience. What I admire is how subtly and organically Muharrar reveals Julia’s identity. There is no clichéd passage about deep conditioning her curly hair or moisturizing her chocolate skin. Instead, we learn who Julia is through her interactions.
For example, when Julia’s art teacher in Barcelona discourages her from writing about Georgia O’Keeffe because the artist has been studied extensively, Julia responds:
“ “O’Keeffe is new to me,” I continued, talking faster as I explained that my father was a local bank manager, but on weekends he painted, he was always bringing home art books from the library, specifically African American art books. I knew Romare Bearden, Alma Thomas, Betye Saar ” 45
I adore this passage. The first sentence, “O’Keeffe is new to me”, is breathtaking. It reminds us that not everyone grows up immersed in the Western art canon, and discovering a frequently studied artist for the first time is still meaningful. Her explanation is a natural way of saying, “I grew up in a Black household,” without directly saying that.
Muharrar carefully balances acknowledging Julia’s Blackness while keeping the novel true to its core as a romance. The only place my mind wandered was when Julia imagined the life she and Gabe might have had if he had lived. Because Gabe is white, I found myself wondering why the complexities of interracial dating never crossed Julia’s mind, or whether her jealousy of Elizabeth included the fact that Elizabeth is white. But maybe that says more about me than about the novel.
Regardless, Muharrar’s portrayal of Julia felt refreshing. At her core, Julia is simply a woman with a broken heart, trying to move forward while holding countless unanswered questions. I didn’t complete the novel and find myself wanting extra commentary about loving a white man or competing with a white woman.
As a Black woman, I felt seen through Julia’s love of Alma Thomas, her awareness of the few Black students on her college campus, her passion for contemporary art, and her dedication to her jewelry business. I even saw myself in Julia’s chaotic decision to show up in London unannounced— though I can’t attribute that to being Black.
Loved One is ultimately about the people we love and the extraordinary, tender, and sometimes slightly unhinged things we do for them, whether they are with us or not. The story reminds us that love is rarely tidy and almost never arrives with the clarity we wish for. In the end, Julia’s journey is not just about mourning Gabe, but about learning how to choose honesty, courage, and connection in her life going forward. In that way, Loved One becomes not only a romance but a quiet call to love more boldly while we still can.