A Book Review: Loved one

A Book Review: Loved One by Aisha Muharrar

Loved One by Aisha Muharrar is a book about two girls who connect after the guy they both dated (& loved) passes away suddenly at 29 years old. The book covers how they come together trying to piece back the puzzle pieces. It is mostly a book about grief and how to make sense of someone dying in a shocking manner. One day they are there and healthy and living and the next they are gone.

I think this reality of losing someone we love so unexpectedly is most people's biggest fear. The way the book was written somehow normalizes and humanizes the fear. You are in the head of the person mourning, listening to all their real daily thoughts. I wouldn't say it's a dark book, there were a lot of entertaining and funny bits, but the central theme is mourning.

First & foremost I want to acknowledge the writing. It was brilliant! Funny & cozy & you feel like you're inside your best friend's mind, or even your own mind. I related so much to the protagonist and often saw myself in between the lines. I have a weird feeling that I could have written that book. The writing really looks like me.

The plot itself, though, is a bit flat. It almost feels like there is no story at all, there was no climax, no hook, no shocking turns. It felt like a plateau. The writing carried the book. I guess sometimes you can write about something so dull, but the way you choose your words brings all the sparkles to life.

It's really hard to articulate grief. Most attempts at doing so paint it as a very intense singular emotion that takes over you for a long period of time. But in reality, or at least my reality, it is not consistent. You experience an array of emotions, and there's a lot of life in between. Grief is not one consistent line. It is interrupted by normal things, random thoughts. It felt very human to read it that way.

Most of the time grief is very hard to identify in ourselves because it's jumbled with so much, and it doesn't come in waves, it seeps into your ordinary activities until it creates a huge puddle you just need to walk away from.

In my experience, losing someone you love, whether it is to death or life, has a permanent effect on you. It does not go away with time, it does not leave you suddenly. It becomes a life companion, that grief. And requires practice. The more you accept its presence the better you are at living with it. In my experience denying grief's existence makes it way harder, leads to an explosion of it, as if the grief itself is rebelling against you until it consumes you.

So you must know it is there and it is there to stay, but you cannot share all your time with it. And then one day you realize you can be happy in grief. You can feel two different emotions (or even more) at once. And then you learn how to focus on one, while the other lurks in the background. Then the lurking turns into resting, no threats of taking over, and then you learn how to live with it.

I would read something else by this writer, and I would hope it would have a better plot. I do recommend this book though, for anyone wanting to diversify their readings, and maybe someone going through grief themselves.