For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. …
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.
Loved it, couldn't wait to see what would happen next
5 stars
Absolutely loved this.
It is so much better than the blurb made it seem.
Short (spoiler free) summary:
The female protagonist meets a woman who's become separated from her original timeline in the 1970's and is trapped in the subway forty years later. They fall for each other as the protagonist tries to unravel what happened and free her from her eternal subway ride.
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The cast of characters is great. They feel vibrant, alive, and filled with entertaining personality.
When we finally encounter the sex scenes, they don't feel forced or artificial and they're very hot.
I couldn't wait to find out what was going to happen next. The story lies somewhere between slice-of-life, mystery, and urban fantasy (barely), and I loved every moment.
This book was amazing. I love that the author writes books that she wishes she would've had available while she was growing up. It brings me profound joy to see somebody who escaped the confines of evangelicalism, and even better when that person's success yields books that are as delightful as this one.
La historia de August y Jane ha sido muy bonita y la temática de chica atrapada temporalmente en el vagón del metro, interesante. Lo único que ha hecho menos disfrutable la historia ha sido que me ha parecido que la trama avanzaba muy lentamente y ha hecho que me costara tiempo terminarlo.
La historia de August y Jane ha sido muy bonita y la temática de chica atrapada temporalmente en el vagón del metro, interesante. Lo único que ha hecho menos disfrutable la historia ha sido que me ha parecido que la trama avanzaba muy lentamente y ha hecho que me costara tiempo terminarlo.
La historia de August y Jane ha sido muy bonita y la temática de chica atrapada temporalmente en el vagón del metro, interesante. Lo único que ha hecho menos disfrutable la historia ha sido que me ha parecido que la trama avanzaba muy lentamente y ha hecho que me costara tiempo terminarlo.
I was so excited about this fun queer romance, but unfortunately I just couldn't get behind it. I'm not sure if my tastes have just changed since reading McQuinston's RWRB a few years ago, but I hated the writing style. I found myself editing in my head while reading this one. I even noticed a sentence missing a period. 🫠
I certainly didn't have expectations of exceptional prose for One Last Stop - I was just there for a good time. But, the style was too clunky for me to enjoy it.
It's been a few years since I was on a big trans lit kick (Nevada, He Mele A Hilo, The Masker, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, a few others I can't recall the exact titles for rn), and I think I forgot what it feels like to feel queer resonance with a work.
The romance here, the descriptions of emotions, touches and responses to touch, intimacy, sex… there were many moments that I read through a film of tears. It felt Good.
But as the book wore on, some of the cracks around the edges started to feel more Significant. In particular, the politics of this world rang hollow for me, to the point of taking away from the rest of the plot some. It is extremely painful for me to watch queerness become deradicalised and more domesticated—more acceptable to cishet, patriarchal, Liberal …
This gave me some Big Feels.
It's been a few years since I was on a big trans lit kick (Nevada, He Mele A Hilo, The Masker, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, a few others I can't recall the exact titles for rn), and I think I forgot what it feels like to feel queer resonance with a work.
The romance here, the descriptions of emotions, touches and responses to touch, intimacy, sex… there were many moments that I read through a film of tears. It felt Good.
But as the book wore on, some of the cracks around the edges started to feel more Significant. In particular, the politics of this world rang hollow for me, to the point of taking away from the rest of the plot some. It is extremely painful for me to watch queerness become deradicalised and more domesticated—more acceptable to cishet, patriarchal, Liberal society. To become a "Blue State" thing. I think this book wants to be radical, but it ends up feeling like a performance of radical politics to me by the end, rather than imagining a fundamental shift to how we live, relate, share, exchange, and—yes—fuck. And I think that lack of fundamental reimagining bleeds into the rest of the text in places, and… I dunno. This kind of thing is Important to me, so it was tough when it fell short. It just felt… very NYC at times.
I'll write a more detailed review in a reply to this review if anyone's interested in particular criticisms; I wanted to keep this spoiler-free.
In any case, fucking good feels when they hit. Pretty interesting scifi or whatever kinds of elements. The pacing was solid, it moved along and kept me reading. It breezed along, was full of beautiful snapshots and gut punch emotional moments, and it was good to read a text with a lot of happy queers—even in hard times. It just… has some weird shit going on that I couldn't ignore.
That’s the way it happens on the subway—you lock eyes with someone, you imagine a life from one stop to the next, and you go back to your day as if the person you loved in between doesn’t exist anywhere but on that train. As if they never could be anywhere else.
Wow! I loved this more than I loved Red, White & Royal Blue, and I have to tell you I loved RWRB a whole damn lot. Yes, there are some minor flaws here and there, parts that could be shorter and tighter and such. But I can't even focus on those, because 99,99% of this book was exactly what I needed.
It was awesome how Casey McQuiston handled the fantastical element here. This is definitely soft sci-fi with a bit of magic thrown in, but through it all, the story remains just so... realistic? Maybe it's because …
That’s the way it happens on the subway—you lock eyes with someone, you imagine a life from one stop to the next, and you go back to your day as if the person you loved in between doesn’t exist anywhere but on that train. As if they never could be anywhere else.
Wow! I loved this more than I loved Red, White & Royal Blue, and I have to tell you I loved RWRB a whole damn lot. Yes, there are some minor flaws here and there, parts that could be shorter and tighter and such. But I can't even focus on those, because 99,99% of this book was exactly what I needed.
It was awesome how Casey McQuiston handled the fantastical element here. This is definitely soft sci-fi with a bit of magic thrown in, but through it all, the story remains just so... realistic? Maybe it's because of my own relationship to every subway I've been in: for some reason, it always feels like this liminal space where anything can happen. But mainly, I think, it's because all the characters are just so well-written and so alive on the page. I feel like they're actual people I've been hanging up with, and I don't just mean August and Jane. I mean absolutely every character in the book.
While I absolutely adored the romance (two girls who are used to running and never putting roots run into each other and become each other's anchors, basically? what's not to love???), every non-romance-related plotline was just as important and exciting. I have such a weakness for stories about queer misfits building homes together and becoming a found family, and this book is that. I also happen to have a weakness for stories about diners and similar places and the working relationships that evolve there, and this book is that, too. And I happen to quite enjoy stories about people making sense of their pasts before they can figure out a future, and new adult stories about getting stuck on that threshold on the cusp of Actual Adult life, and stories about grown-up children and their parents putting distance between them only to slowly come together again, on different terms, with a hope of building a different relationship. In all of these regards, One Last Stop absolutely delivered.
Honestly, it feels like this book was written for me. Can I get a sequel, please? Or a dozen?
Sapphic paranormal romance with some important messages
5 stars
I really enjoyed this book. It's a love story, but it's also a story about friendship, the LGBTQ+ rights movement, self-worth, breaking toxic patterns, and so on.
Every chapter is packed with information. There are lots of side plots along with the main one and there's no filler at all. This can be a little overwhelming since there are not many scenes to just breathe, so I'm glad that I took ten days to read this.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in LGBTQ fiction, you can tell there's a lot of heart in this, and it's hard because LGBTQ history is, but it's worth reading and it's necessary.
Es lohnt sich, das Hörbuch (Berliner Bibs haben es) zu hören ohne vorher auch nur ein Wort über den Inhalt zu lesen um Spoiler zu vermeiden.
War das 1. Hörbuch das ich freiwillig gehört habe, da die Sprecherin nicht nervig oder monoton war, sondern wirklich angenehm. Die Story ist angenehm und inspirierend, wenn natürlich auch cheesy hoch drölf und voller Plotholes. Trotzdem eine sympathische, lesBIsche Butch/Femme Romanze mit vielen queeren Charas, Community und Detektiv_innen-Aspekt.
Allein die ausführlichen Sexszenen hätte es für mich nicht gebraucht, auch wenn diese tatsächlich erfrischend wenig cringy waren.
I somehow missed that this was going to have a paranormal element—the protagonist’s love interest really is stuck on the Q—and I didn’t love that element. But I liked the characters and the sex scenes were good and I would definitely date a 1970s punk dyke
