Paperback, 418 pages
Published May 31, 2021 by St. Martin's Griffin.
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.
Content warning Spoilers ahead
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.
This is the best romance novel I have ever read, and it most certainly has the wildest plot of all of them. Now I want the movie to go along with this, because it's AMAZING.
The main character is August, an introverted 23 year old woman who moves into an apartment in Brooklyn and has to use the Q line to get around. Incidentally, the Q line is the first NYC subway I ever used, down to the stop August uses because I stayed with a friend who lived by the Avenue H stop in Brooklyn. Anyhow! On the Q, August meets a butch, punk Asian American lady, Jane Su, and instantly crushes on her. While first flirting is rejected, August notices something is off here. No matter which Q train she is on, Jane is always there.
As it turns out, Jane has been stuck as a sort of …
This is the best romance novel I have ever read, and it most certainly has the wildest plot of all of them. Now I want the movie to go along with this, because it's AMAZING.
The main character is August, an introverted 23 year old woman who moves into an apartment in Brooklyn and has to use the Q line to get around. Incidentally, the Q line is the first NYC subway I ever used, down to the stop August uses because I stayed with a friend who lived by the Avenue H stop in Brooklyn. Anyhow! On the Q, August meets a butch, punk Asian American lady, Jane Su, and instantly crushes on her. While first flirting is rejected, August notices something is off here. No matter which Q train she is on, Jane is always there.
As it turns out, Jane has been stuck as a sort of ghost on the Q line since the 70s, and cannot leave. August decides to help her, and of course falls in love with her. But can she save her from being trapped on the subway, despite the risk it might send her back to 1977?
The plot is wild, as I said, but so well-written. Jane and August are sizzlingly hot together, wonderful chemistry, all the side characters are lovely and super queer, and I am kinda longing to go to NYC again now. Expect lots of music, pancakes and drag shows.
Must read if you enjoy wlw romance at all!
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.
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 …
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.
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
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