WellRead's September 2025 Selection: Loved One by Aisha Muharrar

We’ve had Loved One on our radar for a long time. Aisha Muharrar has been in the writers’ rooms of TV shows we have loved and find ourselves coming back to often, like Parks and Recreation, The Good Place, and, of course, Hacks. That CV is so impressive we knew we’d love whatever she’d cook up in this novel. 

You know how it goes, when there’s a lot of anticipation for a title, it can either deliver or it can fall short of your ever-increasing expectations. We were so delighted to find that this one hits the mark.  

In Loved One, we meet Julia who is left reeling when her first-love-turned-best-friend dies suddenly. As she heads to the UK to retrieve some of his personal belongings, she has one big question hanging over their relationship but her journey peels back the layers until everything is laid bare and she has to try to reconcile what she thought she knew with the reality. 

While grief is the central theme running through this story, Muharrar keeps it light, seamlessly dropping in those little moments of absurd comedy that bereavement always brings. Loved One cuts through to the truth of what it’s like to grieve for a friend and to grieve without answers – which is how most of us are grieving, one way or another. 

We hope you love it, 

The WellRead team x