Loved One

I picked this up on a whim—on audio—and DEVOURED it; I couldn't stop listening. I went in knowing next to nothing and didn't mind that a bit: when the story opens, thirty-year-old Julia is speaking at the Los Angeles memorial service for her twenty-nine-year-old best friend and first love Gabe, who's just died in an accident. The novel revolves around Julia processing her complicated grief. Going back and forth in time, we experience Julia and Gabe's relationship from the beginning, when they met in Barcelona when his mother was her study abroad professor, up through the last time they saw each other weeks before his death. In the present timeline, we see Julia navigating her private grief over the loss of her celebrity friend, and traveling to London to befriend his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth under not quite honest pretenses. I enjoyed the exploration of complex relationships, but the textural details really made the book for me: the Barcelona and London specifics, the intricacies of Julia's jewelry designs and business, the numerous references to art and artists, the food and decor at Elizabeth's Shoreditch restaurant, Gabe's songwriting process and tour norms—I ate it all up. I listened to the audio, narrated by Emma Ladji.