After Red, White & Royal Blue, I knew I would always read anything by Casey McQuiston and One Last Stop didn't change my mind. At all. Written firmly in the New Adult genre, both by the characters' ages and McQuistion's perfectly unsubtle approach to the saucy scenes, One Last Stop is a found family, first love, time travel, drag show romp celebrating life in your twenties and finding your people.

A book about the people and places that make you believe that love (and magic) is possible, and a sort of coming-of-age story for 'new adults' who are still figuring life out and feeling cynical about student loans. It's funny and sexy and wears its heart on its sleeve, and I adored every page.

As in Red, White, and Royal Blue, McQuiston never shies away from in-the-moment cultural references, and that's part of what makes the setting of this book shine through so well (I remember laughing at a description of someone's Pickle Rick pin). Impossibly witty side characters form a delightful found family, and snippets of queer history are interlaced throughout. The mystery/ science-fiction parts don't take themselves too seriously, but they hold up well and build toward a satisfying emotional conclusion.

I look forward to revisiting Jane and August's story often.

“BIG DICK ENERGY IS GENDER NEUTRAL.”

This will be a spoiler free review of One Last stop by

First off if you know me you know that I love Red white and royal blue and that it’s one of my favorite books. So I was overjoyed when I received a ARC of this book. This beginning of the book was a little slow for me, it took a bit for me to get completely hooked but once I did I fell in love. Not only does this story have a beautiful LGBTQ romance and representation it has a found family troupe. August is new to New York living with a bunch of people she doesn’t know or wants to get to know. But then Jane pops into her life, mysterious, gorgeous, and utterly perfect! The only problem is that she is from the 1970s and that might complicate things. Will love truly conquer all? This story made me feel every possible emotion in the most passionate ways, I cried, I laughed, I felt like I was part of the story. I devoured this book and I can’t wait to read it again! Overall this book was 4.5/5 stars, and I would recommend this book to everyone especially fans of Red white and royal blue Boyfriend material. This story was different from Casey McQuintons first book, because of the paranormal/sci-fy twist. Yet the author did an amazing job of keeping all the romance in love tied into the story.
4.5/5 stars

An Arc was exchanged for a honest review.

Indisputably, Casey McQuiston is an extremely talented writer. The way One Last Stop flows, from beginning to end, just took my breath away. Ms. McQuiston goes deep inside August, and the way she grows over the course of the novel is beautifully done.

What astonished me most, and kept me coming back for more, is the clever way everyone’s stories are tied together. Without giving too much away, there’s something tying Jane to August, a reason why they connect in the first place. As the entire tale unfolds, amazing nuggets in time are uncovered, and it just gets better and better.

As a time travel romance: spectacular
As a hurt/comfort romance: perfection
As a humorous look at a slice of life in modern day Brooklyn: fantastic
Do I need to go on? One Last Stop is a gem, and I loved every minute of it!

August would just happy just surviving after arriving to NYC. But after moving in with colorful roommates and running into a time-traveling punk on the Q train, her life becomes more than she expected. I really got swept away with the story in the best way possible. The missing connection posts were great. I was impressed when the past was woven into the story and also the moments on the subway. As a New Yorker, I will say Casey McQuiston definitely knows the Q line! I really enjoyed the writing and found myself rereading some sections over again. I would definitely recommend this book!

Love this and this book is the perfect LGBTQ love story in NYC. This was so creative and fun, light and sweet, and the perfect beach read.

I went into this book with crazy high expectations because I LOVED Red, White & Royal Blue. This one was slightly cheesier, and didn't have the banter I loved in RWRB, but I still really enjoyed it. The most special thing about this book is it takes a total 180 about 25% into it, something I wasn't expecting at all. I loved how creative and unique the story is: it was a great love story and a great ending.

Can't wait to see what Casey McQuiston writes next!

This book had an amazing blurb. I’ve never read this authors work before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, it was brilliant it was sexy it was fun and I can’t wait to see what Casey has for readers next!

Casey McQuiston is a phenomenal author. This is so different from Red, White & Royal Blue, but not in a bad way! If you are looking for a sweet, low angst sapphic rom-com, this isn't it. The romance takes a big step back in this novel, and this is A LOT more science fiction like than I expected it to be.

At its core, this book is about finding yourself. It's a coming-of-age story at the age of 23. It's for the people who are almost out of college and don't know where the future leads or what you want to do with life. I'm grateful I read this when I did because I deeply related to August.

The strongest aspect of this book is the found family. The bonds August has with Myla, Niko, and Wes were just wonderful. And the bond August had with the people at Billy's. It was a joy to read. It was nice to read a book that focused on friendship just as much as romance.

That being said, Jane and August- adorable. The slow build of their relationship was endearing, and their tension was immaculate.

This is so different from Red White and Royal Blue, so don't count this out if you didn't like it!

This book.

Like it was just wonderful. The main characters - August and Jane - and all the side characters too.

I love seeing the relationship between August and Jane evolve. How they got to know each other and then things progressed from there.

There are sci-fi element and mystery elements to this book and I loved it.

Basically I loved this one & would definitely recommend it.

This started as a sweet "meet cute" story involving a coffee mishap and borrowed scarf and turned into something I never saw coming.

August Landry first meets Jane Su on the Q train, on a disaster of a day. But the short moments they share, leaves an impression. While this could have ended up being just another missed connection, August is lucky to see Jane again on the same train. And again, and again, and again. Like August, I had to wonder, were these two just on the same schedules? That would be the obvious answer to their repeated reunions, but when August runs into Jane on the same train at a completely different time, she begins to think something was amiss.

I think it is best to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the ride the author takes you on. It is something I would never put together and that August is able to figure it out, connecting dots over several decades was more impressive, and showed how much Jane truly meant to her. I adored these two together and how August tries to help Jane in her unusual journey.

This story also has a great group of secondary characters. Myla, Niko, Wes, Isaiah, I loved each of them in equal measure. Not only did they trust August and her strange subway adventures but worked together to help both of the girls fix this endless ride.

Although some parts of the story were slow for me, overall, I was enchanted by this story of the Coffee Girl and Subway Girl whose one chance meeting changed the course of their lives forever. Bonus that this story featured a F/F story, which seem few and far between in the romance world. A real gem!

Unsurprisingly, McQuiston has written another beautiful, silly, cute romance, that despite the time-travel feels entirely plausible (Who among us can actually say we haven't fallen a little bit in love with a mysterious stranger on public transit?). Like Red, White, and Royal Blue McQuiston manages to create a terrific amount of chemistry between our two main characters, Jane and August, from the little emotional details to the truly astonishing number of subway make-out scenes (that all still manage to feel a little bit different). I will say that early in the novel I felt like Jane's character lacked depth; she seemed relatively flat, almost as if her magic was her only quality. However, Jane's character grows as August gets to know her better and she starts to take shape as a real person (with frustrations and emotions). In retrospect, this mirrors what is happening with Jane's actual, physical body beautifully, but at the beginning it was a little frustrating.

However, to say One Last Stop is just about the romance between Jane and August would be selling the story short. I honestly cannot think of another book that so perfectly captures the feeling of moving and falling in love with a place, finding your people, and establishing yourself in the process. McQuiston also captures the ways that memories can be locked into places-- sometimes you don't remember something (a book, a poem, a happy memory) until you pass by the place that it happened or hear a song or smell a specific scent.

I will say the one thing I was disappointed in is that every major character ends up in a committed romantic relationship by the end of the book. In fact, the end feels like a silly, ridiculous montage of love declarations at the climax of a movie (in the best way possible!). While I'm not opposed to that, I really wish at least one of the characters was happily single at the end of the book. McQuiston does such a good job of illustrating queer systems of support, that it feels odd to have everyone coupled up by the end. I will say McQuiston does a good job addressing the ways in which platonic friendships remain constant even as folks enter into romantic relationships, but I wanted just a smidge more.

Casey McQuiston knocks it out the park again. Her stories and characters feel like coming home and you can't help but instantly fall in love with them.

McQuinston's One Last Stop is ridiculously delightful, powerful, and swoon-worthy. I've been craving this book since I first heard about it, and after Red, White & Royal Blue, I had high expectations. They were exceeded. OLS is absolute perfection, and McQuinston expertly navigates what makes romantic comedies so engaging: not just two central characters but an entire cast of lovable oddballs, each complete with their own character arc.

OLS is a story about family — mainly found family. Our main character August is new to New York City, and she is desperate to avoid any long-lasting bonds. Soon, she finds herself welcomed warmly by her roommates, and she meets Subway Girl. What comes next is a fantastical, magical story: a girl lost in time and the object of August's fascination and desire. Jane, a punk from the '70s, is hilarious and magical... and she needs August's help. This book will pull at your heartstrings, and the chemistry between August and Jane will get your heart pumping.

Sexy, emotional, and even educational, OLS doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the difficult history of the queer community. While you won't find spoilers here, the ending is very fulfilling, and my eyes weren't dry.

Though I thought it was a little long, this was a sweet, unusual story with a unique time-slip element. All the characters were lovable and I enjoyed every minute of their bantering.

One Last Stop gave me exactly what I was looking for and more. I don’t read a ton of rom com books, but when summer rolls around I crave this kind of book. Something funny and quirky that leave me with a warm and fuzzy feeling. One Last Stop is all that and more.

Unlike many books in this genre, One Last Stop is inclusive and diverse with a cast of interesting and fully developed characters. Nothing about this book felt tired or over done and while the overall story was sweet and fun, the characters were real people with real problems and backstories. I fell in love with August’s little found family and couldn’t help but wish to stumble into their little corner of NYC.

I absolutely loved One Last Stop from start to finish and will be recommending it to basically every human I come across this summer.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It’s delightfully queer and set in New York, which combined was just one of the best experiences to listen to, although since I can’t travel right now did leave me feeling a little melancholy. August has just moved to New York, and the atmosphere felt incredibly accurate to me. While I don’t live there, I have visited there yearly for a number of years, and the descriptions of the subways, the diners, the streets…all of it just made me wish I could hop on a plane tomorrow.

She’s always been a loner and if you’re looking for found family, this book delivers it all over the place. Her roommates don’t let her hole up in her room, they adopt her into their family and she looks up one day and realizes that she has people that love her. August works in this amazing diner that felt exactly like a diner that exists in New York and populated with real characters that exist in New York, who slowly just become her family too.

August meets Subway Girl, aka Jane, on yes, the subway, one day and she realizes that Jane cannot actually leave the subway. At all. And that begins the mystery plot of One Last Stop as August and Jane set about discovering who exactly, and where exactly, Jane belongs. I wasn’t sure if this setup would work but McQuiston did the worldbuilding well and made me believe this was a thing that could happen. Before moving to NYC, August had spent her life with her mother searching for what happened to her missing Uncle, which is a very low subplot. When multiple subplots collide there are a few plot twists and turns that were a bit too pat for me. But in the spirit of getting to the HEA, I was all in at that point and the issues were minor enough that it didn’t bother me. During that final scene I was completely rooting for them with my heart in my throat.

August is a fleshed out person and we get to see her as a full character, but Jane less so. This is due to not getting her POV, but we still definitely get a significant amount of information about her via August teasing out pieces of her past as they try to figure out who she actually is. Jane is Chinese American and we do get to see that acknowledged and discussed but it feels removed a bit, which I feel was probably a good move since the author is not Chinese.

The narration was fantastic and I was completely immersed in the world. Natalie Naudus did the narration and I’d definitely rec listening to it.

CW: talk of death, anxiety, homophobia in the past, racism in the past, talk of hate crimes in the past

Can you imagine falling in love with someone who hasn't aged for 45 years or so and is not a vampire!! Yes, that totally interesting and weird scenario is what got me hooked into it. It also has an amazing, diverse cast of characters whose lives are even more eclectic and fun. It talks about this concept of time not being linear and time/space continuum that forms the crux of the plot. Now, August will need to find out how to get Jane who is stuck on a train in Newyork subway or simply let her continue to live on the train forever but without aging.

The time/space thing is completely refreshing but I did feel less interested in quite a lot of the portions of the book. So the pace didn't work great for me but I did see a lot of people enjoyed it more than me.There is also a mystery about a missing uncle that August finally finds the answers at the end so this extra element was interesting and how it neatly tied in with the main plot.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

3.5 stars rounded to a 4. On whole, I think if you enjoyed Red White & Royal Blue you will enjoy One Last Stop.

To be honest, for me, this novel was good but not great. I loved that even though the story speaks about tough subjects from LGBT+ history, it doesn’t center on someone coming out. Everyone is out and just living their lives. The representation is great and the writing is truly enjoyable. With that being said, there was a disconnect; ironically, One Last Stop was missing some of the magic from Red White & Royal Blue for me. I can’t pinpoint what it is, but regardless, I’d recommend reading this novel if you are interested.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for providing an advance e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a joy to read! This is the story of August, a restless college student that hasn't found a place that she can call home. She has attended several different universities and still hasn't figured out what she wants to do. She has bounced from city to city and decides to give NYC a try. August meets Jane on the subway and is immediately smitten. Jane is confident, friendly and charismatic. August wants to blend into the crowd and Jane wants to be in the center of everything. I thought this was just a simple love story but I was very mistaken and so pleasantly surprised. Not only does this story have a ton of heart, but it has incredible depth. The love story between Jane and August is heart wrenching with an unconventional twist. The supporting characters take this story to another level. Not only do they represent the LGBTQ community well but they add so much to the story. The relationships between this group of roommates is written in such a smart way that I want to move into this apartment and hang out with them!! August has a tenuous relationship with her mother that adds another facet to this incredible story. Lastly I have to mention Annie, the bigger than life Drag Queen that is in love with Wes, one of the roommates. Overall this was such a breath of fresh air. The narrator for the audio version did a really good job with this story.
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.