I was very excited to read this book and had requested this a long time ago. But the recent situation of the world around me has put me in a bad slump, and I’m having particular trouble trying to read contemporary novels. So I won’t be able to review this one for now, but hopefully I’ll be able to read it someday in the future when things get better.
I did listen to a few chapters in the audiobook and I thought the narration was a lot of fun and banter was pretty cool. I’m sure the rest of this will be equally fun.

What a delightfully quirky and charming read this one was! If you’re like me and fell in love with the authors debut, Red White and Royal Blue and have been anxiously awaiting her sophomore novel you’ll be pleased I think. However I do want to warn you that this one reads differently than that one, and not in a bad way, it’s just much more odd and out there than her first. But it’s still charming, funny and full of diverse characters that will steal your heart, it’s just weird.

As much as I enjoyed both August and Jane as characters and loved watching them fall in love the secondary characters totally and completely stole the show for me here. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I did find myself more interested in their lives at times than on what was going on between A and J which seemed a little off to me. Just an observation, I was still invested in the main romance but I think the whole time travel thing may have distanced me slightly. I did think the author did a good job of not going too far in the sciencey direction and my brain only hurt a few times trying to figure out time loops or whatever but I think romances grounded in reality are more my jam. This gripey review may make it seem like I didn’t enjoy this one, but I did I think I just had super high hopes and expectations and found it to be a teeny tiny bit lacking at some points. Still recommended but go into it knowing what to expect is my best advice.

Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Griffin for a copy of ONE LAST STOP in exchange for an honest review.

Casey McQuiston does it again. Red, White, and Royal Blue is one of my favorite romances. Sophomore novels can be a little anxiety-inducing because when you write a runaway bestseller, readers' expectations are heightened. This book, however, did not disappoint in the slightest. It has warmth, love, vulnerability, relatability, and a little something extra that I found so interesting.

McQuiston's writing describes everyday experiences with a fresh perspective, and their books offer diversity in their cast of characters. This book has LGBT+ representation throughout and addresses homophobia and the challenges associated with coming out to a family that may not accept one's sexuality.

One Last Stop is the story of August and Jane. August is a twenty-three-year-old who moves to NY in search of belonging. Jane is a twenty-four-year-old who is dazzling and mysterious and looks like she's straight out of the 1970s. Except, she is. She's been displaced, caught in a moment in time that she can't escape, and so August sets out to find out why Jane is stuck and how to get her unstuck. However, finding an answer may mean losing Jane forever, and so the tension between helping and losing it all underlies this heartfelt hug of a book.

Compulsively readable, this is a love story that will bring everyone a little hope this summer and beyond.

One Last Stop was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it did not disappoint! This book has now joined Red, White and Royal Blue as one of my favourites.

Casey McQuiston just has this way of writing the most relatable characters. You are immediately attached and want nothing but happiness for them. I loved the relationship between August and June. It was wholesome and very well paced. The fine balance between instalove and slow paced. Right away, August was there and willing to help June with her “problem”, no spoilers here.

I’ve never been a fan of time travel books, but I will auto-buy anything by Casey McQuiston, and wow was I sucked in from the first chapter. This is a very different kind and refreshing take on time travel. I would get to the end of a chapter and then convince my self to read one more. I just could not put this book down.

And can we talk about the supporting cast!! Myla, Niko, Wes and Isaiah were all so much fun to be with. The bond that the 4 roommates (August, Myla, Niko and Wes) had was heartwarming. They were always there for each other no matter what. It was so nice being able to read something where everyone just believes August for her word. Like no ifs or buts about this mysterious person, who does not seem to fit into their time line.

August and June are amazing, but my favourite character has to be Niko! Every time he was in the room I was just mesmerized by him. I still don’t know what it was, but whenever he spoke I just felt this calmness fall over me and I was in such a peaceful state. I have never felt like that while reading before.

I loved One Last Stop and will definitely be recommending it along with Red, White and Royal Blue!

This was so great! I loved the queer found family of 6F (plus Isiah a.k.a Annie Depressant). The beginning was a little slow but, the last half of this was amazing. I loved the journey the August and Jane went on throughout the whole book and this book made me feel like a warm stack pancakes cover in sweet maple syrup. Or a Su Special.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book.

Oh my god, there are genuinely no words to describe how this book made me feel. Every emotion that can be felt was felt in this book and I loved every second of it.

If there’s anything that Casey McQuiston does well it is characters. And I fell in love with every single one in this book. I don’t think I’ve loved a friend group more than I did with this book, at least not in a long time. Honestly, I’m a bit jealous that I wasn’t a part of their group actually.

Also, the concept and setting of this book was very well done. I could picture myself in New York City, down to the little details, despite never having been there myself. The execution of the time warp plot line was very well thought and planned out, never once did it feel convenient for the plot or out of place.

And the ROMANCE. That’s definitely another thing that Casey does beautifully and this book is no exception. Actually, even the side romances were beautiful and everything I could’ve imagined. But the main romance is on another level. Forbidden, yearning, it was all just too much. And in the best way.

This book was exactly what I needed in my life, one that I will carry both its message and the feelings that it gave me throughout the future. And I know that those feelings will return with every reread and that I will think about these characters constantly. Because they’re exactly what I wanted and more, I can see myself in them while also seeing aspects in them that I can’t relate to. And still loving them all the same.

Needless to say, I loved this book. If you couldn’t already tell.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston is a wonderful queer romance about finding yourself, finding love, and finding your place whenever you feel lost.

August has spent her whole life trying to get out of the shadow of her mother’s obsessions. Transferring schools hasn’t helped in the past, but moving to New York City feels like starting over. She has new roommates, a new job, and a new city that happens to have cute girls on the subway. Or at least one cute girl in particular. It doesn’t take long for August to start falling for Jane, but Jane isn’t your typical New Yorker. Trapped in time and stuck on the Q line since the 70s, Jane might not know what year it is or what style is currently in fashion, but she does know she likes August. Longing to bring Jane home and have a real relationship with her, August sets out to solve Jane’s mystery. With some sleuthing, the help of her friends, and a little New York City magic, August is determined to help Jane - even if it means losing her forever.

One Last Stop was such a fabulously diverse story. McQuiston features characters of so many backgrounds - different races, different gender identities, different sexual orientations, and different socio-economic classes. I’m hard-pressed to think of another story I’ve read where so many walks of life are represented, and McQuiston does such a wonderful job of including these characters. And if that level of inclusivity isn’t enough, August also enlists psychics and drag queens to help her on her journey.

McQuiston revisits the same easy writing style used in their debut Red, White & Royal Blue. It’s easy to dive into One Last Stop and forget the outside world. Even the most dire situations invoke a sense of humor and hope, and it’s that wit and sarcasm that makes One Last Stop such a fun read. From August and Jane’s first meeting, I knew I’d be rooting for them to get their happily-ever-after. August was a relatable character: young, falling in love for the first time, and not sure about her place in the universe. And Jane is so much her opposite most of the time - experienced, sure of herself, warm, and inviting - that readers can’t help but root for them.

Though not classified as fantasy, there’s a sense of magic running throughout One Last Stop. Through parties, late night dinners at the diner, and drag shows, the plot is rife with a sense of life. I would absolutely love to live in this story with this cast of characters, hitting up drag shows, eating pancakes, and riding the Q line for hours with Jane and August. McQuiston brilliantly weaves acceptance and love into a story about finding yourself and defying the odds. Whether you read and loved Red, White & Royal Blue or are new to Casey McQuiston, One Last Stop has a little magic and romance for everyone.

Oh, how I wanted to love this book. Like so many, I really adored Red White & Royal Blue and have very much been looking forward to Casey McQuiston's next book. But unfortunately, this one just fell short for me. I don't think this is a problem with the book so much as my expectations and what I wanted out of the book, versus what it actually was. What I wanted was a fun, fluffy, feel-good romance like I'd gotten in RW&RB. What I got was a book that very much focused on early 20s coming-of-age/finding yourself, a LOT of queer history, and a light sci fi story about a young woman thrown out of time, with a side dish of romance. And ultimately, I wanted the romance to be the main course. So like I said, this is more a case of what the book WAS versus what I wanted it to be. Because it IS a good book; it just wasn't the book for me at this time.

5/5*

Red, White & Royal Blue (review here) is hands-down one of my favourite books. I talk about it all the time, I often wish I could recommend it to my students (but I can't because I teach high school and it's just a touch to sexual for that age group), and it’s a book that I’ve reread countless times since I first received it. So of course I was thrilled to find out that Casey McQuiston was coming out with a new novel, and I liked that this book is completely different in that there’s a fantastical element to the love story. I’m thrilled that I was given an advance copy because I don’t know if I could’ve waited any longer to read this book! Happily, I loved it as much as I loved her debut novel.

Amazing Characters
I absolutely adore the characters that McQuiston created in this book. While August took me a second to warm up to, I promptly fell in love with her by chapter two. And a big part of that was with the help of her roommates - Myla, Niko and Wes - who help August come out of her shell, with both them and with the reader. All the characters in this book are so much fun to read about, in a large part because they are giving us the opportunity to see characters and people we don’t normally see in mainstream love stories. The way that characters are portrayed - their different genders, sexualities, and personalities - is so beautifully and seamlessly done that I honestly feel like I know these characters and I wish I could be friends with them in real life. This book is educational in that it shows that there is no one "right" way to be. It’s all about being who you truly are and finding your people who will be there to support you no matter what.

Fun Mystery
One of the best things about this book is that I really didn’t know where the “Jane is from the 19070s” storyline was going. It’s usually pretty easy to tell how contemporary romances are going to end, and I love that because I want the happy ending. But in this case, the mystery around why Jane is stuck on the subway and how she ended up here genuinely takes a lot of the novel to figure out and there’s no clear answer as the reader for how this will play out. And I love it! August has literally trained her entire life to be able to help someone in this situation and figure out who Jane truly is. It was really fun to read and see their story (and their romance) progress. It’s clear McQuiston had a lot of fun writing this book, and I can’t imagine how much research she would’ve had to do to figure out the scientific logistics of it all! But it makes for a really fun read and a solid contemporary/romance/pseudo-mystery novel.

Love the Little Details
There were so many little things I loved about this book that helped to make it what it is. Things like the beginning of every chapter, where we’re given newspaper blurbs and missed connection ads that slowly help us piece together some of the mystery around Jane. Likewise, the details given to background characters (aka all the other employees at Billy’s) is excellent because it makes the story come to life. We’re given so much about August’s world and I honestly felt like I could go to New York and have pancakes at Billy’s and see these characters there. But the best details about this book is the insight given into what it was like to be LGBTQ+ in the 1970s. And it’s heartbreaking in so many ways. As August leans what it would’ve been like, we also realize just how far (and honestly, there’s still so much more work to do) we’ve come as a society. But also how cruel the world was to people who didn’t fit into the heteronormative restrictions of the period. It made me further appreciate everyone who has had to fight for their right to live the life they want even when everyone around them tries to tear them down.

This book is going to be another high recommendation from me! It has great characters, a fun storyline, and it’s just such a wonderful and entertaining book to read. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fun contemporary romance or to those looking for LGBTQ+ characters in romance novels. McQuiston has once again created a beautiful love story and I am so excited for this to come out so that we can all keep talking about it!

Casey McQuiston has done it again with One Last Stop! Much like their debut, this is an emotion packed romcom that takes you on an adventure!

I had the pleasure of listening to an advanced audiobook copy as well while reading it was delightful. The two main characters, August and Jane, deserve the world and I love them so much. I thought it was really neat to have the whole time travel sort of element even though it is a romcom, it added for a really unique story!

This book was equal parts funny and romantic and it had me laughing, swooning and in tears! I love when a good makes me feel this way! The spicy elements were really realistic and just perfect for the situations and I loved seeing that. Overall this was just a fantastic read and I immediately wanted to re-read it when I was done!

When I received the email that I'd been approved to read One Last Stop, I was incredibly excited. I'd already seen people hyping the book, and read and loved Red, White & Royal Blue. So I went into this book with very high expectations. And while I'd say they were generally met, it wasn't quite as good as RW&RB. But! To be better than that book was a challenge, and should not discredit this book.

That being said, if you liked the snappy banter and the diverse and vivid characters of RW&RB, then you'll be pleased with One Last Stop. OLS and RW&RB use a similar narration tactic of following through close third person one half of the the primary romantic couple. August, much like Alex before her, was vivid, relatable, lovable, and a bunch of other positive adjectives. She wasn't perfect, but she felt real. Conversely, the love interest, Jane Su (view spoiler) came across a bit too unrealistically perfect for me. Like, her main flaw is that she's a bit of a rolling stone, and she regrets her decision to leave her family, but honestly those felt like flimsy attempts to add some kind of depth to Jane when she was, by and large, characterized as an entirely good person who was always doing good things and helping others. It didn't help that August too did quite a bit of idolizing of her and even at their third act argument felt like she was immediately in the wrong and Jane wasn't (but Jane of course felt the same way because she's so ~perfect~. I think a lot of this just derives from the book not being from Jane's POV and her generally being a passive character since she's stuck on the subway, so we get to see her make very few decisions compared to August.

The secondary characters by and large I really enjoyed, and that might be an area where I felt improvement from RW&RB. The group dynamics in this book were great. It's a big wish-fulfillment thing, that dream you find a bunch of like-minded queers and get to live a bohemian life (but not without some real-life downsides), but this was a romcom, so that kind of idealistic group relationship worked really well and made me happy and more than a bit envious.

McQuiston's got a great language style, humorous and fun. There were definitely a few moments where it felt like the characters were talking in outdated (by 2-3 years even, which feels like a lifetime these days) slang, a little bit of millenial cringe, but I think considering I'm on the younger end of the book's target demographic I may be a bit biased. It was interesting to see how the book, since it has such a historical focus, firmly puts itself in 2020, but a COVID-less 2020. I haven't read any novels that were explicitly in 2020, and I think it'll be interesting to see how other authors deal with it. I didn't mind McQuiston's choice at all, but did think it was noteworthy.

The time travel part was interesting. It was a pretty simple concept, which is good for a novel that doesn't have the time travel as its main focus. In fact, most parts felt more like a ghost story than a time travel as far as the tropes and format of it (something the characters themselves even pick up on). I appreciated the inclusion of queer history, especially the bit about the UpStairs Lounge which is definitely sometimes not taught about as much as, say, Stonewall. The fact that (view spoiler) But, that's not a major hangup.

Anyone who loved Red, White, and Royal Blue , loves queer romance, or just wants to have a good times will want to check out One Last Stop.

I adored everything about this book. I didn't know exactly how Casey McQuiston could top RWRB, but they managed to do it! It was heart-warming, heart-breaking and everything in between, with a cast of characters you can't help but root for every step of the way.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would love this book. I’ve had an ARC of this book since December but I’ve been saving it for the right time. I adored Red White and Royal Blue in 2019. I’m so thankful that I’ve had the privilege of getting an ARC of both of these books.

Found family, New York City, diverse representation, sapphic romance, time travel.

One Last Stop follows August, a 23-year-old bi girl who has spent her whole life looking for a place to call home. She’s originally from New Orleans but has moved to different states and universities and has finally settled on New York City as a place to finish her degree. She finds a questionable-looking roommate ad and ends up finding her people.

The roommates include Niko, a trans Latino psychic and bartender, Myla, a queer Black electrical engineer who is now an artist with a Chinese adoptive mom, and Wes, a queer Jewish tattoo artist. August also meets a neighbor named Annie, drag queen by night and accountant by day who is called Isaiah when dressed like a boy and is hopelessly in love with Wes.

On her first day of school August gets a coffee stain on the entire from of her shirt, A girl on the Q train gives her a red scarf to cover it up, and August wonders if she’ll ever see her again. She keeps seeing this girl Jane on the Q train and it’s always in the same train car.

Who is Jane? Jane is a Chinese lesbian from the 70s who is trapped in this time slip. She doesn’t remember much about her past, only the things that are in her backpack. She is the most swoon-worthy love interest.

August who has learned how to solve missing person cases all her life because her mother has been searching for her missing brother and roped August into doing the same, decides that she’s going to figure out Jane’s past and get her out of this subway time-warp that she’s stuck in.

Casey McQuiston has done it again! Exquisite prose, characterization, witty banter, and the swoony romance. Everything was immaculate. Every character felt genuine and important and they all capture your heart. The friendships and side romances were just as important as the main one. The depiction of different identities, cultures, religions, and the representation of past and present queer communities in this book was extraordinary.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from the publisher via Net Galley.

This book stole my heart and I can’t even complain. Casey is so good at writing a world that feels real to the touch - so layered and textured it feels like a place just at the tips of your fingers. OLS is overflowing with humor and love and heartbreak and all the things you want in your favorite novel. I’m so grateful that Casey graces us with her writing - she’s a talent that I will never stop reading from.

** spoiler alert ** I'm gonna hover between a 3 and 4 on this I think. It was fun. I loved how August found a "family" that fit her in New York. I just had a really hard time suspending my belief about whether Jane was alive/dead/both. And in the historical coincidences that brought them together.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press & NetGalley for the e-ARC of One Last Stop, out June 1st.

Former kid detective & loner (August) moves to NY and meets a tough but sweet girl (Jane) on the train! Jane’s from the 1970s but stuck in 2020!

This will be a huge hit and I’m so happy that a f/f romance is getting so much buzz. but ughhhhhh I’m sad because I really wanted to love this, and it really missed the mark for me.

Jane remembers nothing about her past and has to relearn everything about herself. Through this process, she is forced to relive so much trauma from her life as a Chinese-American lesbian in the 1970s, as well as the trauma of being torn away from her existence thru a time travel incident. It takes a long time before any of this gets even briefly addressed by August. Jane has no agency in this situation and I don’t think it was ever adequately handled. August’s view of Jane is pretty infantilizing: she thinks Jane’s cute for disliking cops & laughs about how Jane can’t believe gay people can hold hands in public now, rather than seeing her as a real person with complex emotions. They also just never really talk about how, despite the fact that they’re both technically in 20-something year old bodies, they kinda have a huge age (/time?) gap. While plenty of romance novels don’t bother addressing things like this, I think that a book that presents all of these issues should also take the time and space needed to address it.

Other notes:
-I was very invested in the relationship between two side characters!!
-The found family stuff with August’s roommates was cute but relied on a very romanticized version of New York and so much cheesy dialogue
-I just really wish the electricity time travel plot was wrapped up sooner, since it was such a big part of the book, made very little sense, and meant that there were too many subway sex scenes. I would have preferred if we had been able to move on sooner and seen more of August & Jane together in the real world.

Instead of just handling a few issues really well, way too much was attempted for one romance novel, and a lot of it was not satisfyingly wrapped up. All of this took me away from the cute moments between our main couple (which is kinda the point of a romance novel!!) and honestly made this book somewhat of a struggle to get through.

TW: homophobic abuse, racism, death

Thanks so much for this Arc! I’ve heard great things about Casey McQuiston and her writing did not disappoint.

August seems to be sort of lost in her life. She ends up in NYC, trying to make her way. She’s shy and figuring out who she is. She ends up having a “love at first sight” moment on the subway. That’s when she meets Jane. They have an easy automatic friendship- both trying to figure out if it is something more. The issue is Jane is from the 1970’s and stuck in a time loop on the subway. She can’t get off. August helps her figure out who she is while kindling the electricity between them. This becomes August’s project hoping to help Jane. But the more she learns the more she likes Jane. How can she have a relationship with someone who is stuck in time? Who is Jane and how did this happen? What will happen to her if they can break the loop?

This was very well written. McQuiston has a way with words that just flow effortlessly. The characters were charming and enjoyable. I loved getting to know August & Jane and their friends. I think this would be a great YA story & also beautiful for the queer community. So much of this was about the characters discovering who they are. It was natural and accepted and I loved that piece. Personally I am just not a fan of time travel stories. I can’t quite get past the logic of it. Because of that I struggled with this story. I did love some of the twists and ways the story overlapped. The concept just seemed far fetched for me.

I had a feeling I would absolutely adore this book with my entire heart and I was RIGHT. First things first though, I have to call out the absolutely fantastic audio narration. Natalie Naudus did an incredible job brining these characters to life and if you have the opportunity to consume this as an audio book, I highly recommend it. Thanks SO MUCH to libro for this ALC!! It’s out June 1st, and I have so many things I want to say about it, that I don’t even know where to start.

In my review of RWARB I said, “McQuiston captures the essence of a moment better than anyone I’ve ever read and their descriptions are a completely tactile experience” It was true of that book and if possible, they did an even better job in OLS. The way they perfectly describes all the quirks of an NYC apartment from the tilt of the floor to the temperamental shower and her ability to make you feel like you’re standing in Billy’s diner breathing in the sickly sweet scent of pancake batter and bitter coffee while your feet stick to the floor. McQuiston’s entire cast of characters is larger than life and place this genre blending mystery, timeslip, saphic, romance a tier above the rest. It’s incredibly diverse and queer and full of heartwarming found family, hilarious roommate antics, expert level banter, queer history, a heist!, clothes incinerating steam, and so much yearning.

August is a curvy, bi, 23 year old who has just arrived in NYC intent on finishing her degree. Her life up to this point has been mostly dedicated to helping her mom solve a missing person’s case from the 70s and she’s ready to distance herself from that and find a place she truly belongs. After responding to a roommates advertisement, she ends up moving in with Wes, an intensely private, queer, Jewish tattoo artist, Niko, a trans, Puerto Rican-American, physic who moonlights as a bartender, and his girlfriend Myla, a queer, Black, electrical engineer turned artist who immediately befriends a bewildered August. Typically a loaner, August reluctantly allows her new roomates to drag her to celebratory dinner at Billy’s diner, where some creative lying lands August a job right before she starts a new semester at school.

On her very first day of school, she’s running late and covered in spilled coffee when she sees Jane Su—outgoing, cool, Chinese-American, lesbian—for the first time while riding the Q train. Jane is tall and gorgeous and confident and wearing a leather jacket and looking sexy AF when she offers August her scarf. August cannot get Jane out of her mind and is delighted—and then suspicious—when she keeps running into her on the same train, in the same car, over and over again. No matter when August takes the Q, Jane is there with her backpack and a friendly, “Hey coffee girl” greeting. August begins to use the skills she’s honed for years looking for her missing uncle to try and figure out who Jane is. She eventually learns that Jane has been displaced from the 70s and is stuck on the q train in some sort of timeslip and has no memory of how she got there or who she is. August makes it her mission to help Jane remember and find a way to free her from the Q and get her back to her time before it’s too late.

This book is so fucking fantastic. I’m calling it now as my favorite of the year. I’m barely scratching the surface with this review. I really wanted to highlight the diversity and abundance of queer representation along with some of my favorite aspects of the story. I hope you will all read it and if you already have, please come gush about it with me!!

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston is a great book about finding love in unusual place. I loved this LGBTQ+ book.

When I started Read & Wright, it took me a while to have the confidence to start requesting books from publishers. But when I learned about Red White & Royal Blue in People Magazine, I knew I had to take a chance. It was the first ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) I received and became an instant favorite. So, needless to say, I’m very attached to Casey McQuiston’s books.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for my early copy of One Last Stop, which I might have loved even more. ONe Last Stop is available wherever books are sold June 1, 2021 and if you haven’t preordered your copy yet, what are you waiting for?

Synopsis: “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.” —From the publisher

What I Liked:

The Cast of Characters—The thing that McQuiston does better than any other contemporary author is create a believable sense of found family. I think for most Xillenials and Gen Z, we’ve discovered that our friends can become our family. I loved Jane and August, but I also loved Isaiah, Wes, Nico, Myla, everyone who works at Billy’s…it was just a warm and vibrant group of people.

The Time Travel Aspect—I am not normally a fan of books that use time travel, but I was so charmed but the entire book I didn’t mind. It also totally and equivokly WORKED. I loved how it allowed so much queer history to be weaved in so that this coming of age story also offered a history lesson.

The Setting—This book made me so homesick for the city. It’s rare that books can perfectly capture the feeling of * my New York * : sweaty subway ribes, late nights with loud friends, drag shows, hairspray, too much make up, and cramped apartments. That is the the feeling of this book and it made my heart happy and sad at the same time.

What Didn’t Work:

Gonna go out on a limb here and say…nothing. I know, typical of a gushing book review. But I really loved how McQuiston’s writing has grown since RWRB. The pacing was perfect, the steam was * chef’s kiss *, the characters were a delight. Cook me up a Su Special and call it a day.

TW/CW: Strained parent/child relationship, significant mentions of the AIDS crisis, grief, homophobia, ableism, alcoholism, death

Character Authenticity: 5/5 Steam Rating: 2/5 Overall Rating: 5/5