Casey McQuiston does it again! This book has everything. Casual queerness! The most perfect love interest of all time! True love! Light sci-fi elements that are sort of hand-waved away because who cares, there's kissing! Discussions of the hairy horror Wolverine frog!

All in all, another slam dunk. 4 strawberry milkshake pop-tarts out of 5.

This was so fun!! I absolutely loved this cast of characters, the descriptions of New York, Subway Girl, and the magical/sci-fi twist to the book. The romance is adorable and the pieces on family and how lgbtq+ rights have changed were really well-written, interesting, and emotional. This was a delightful read and I can't wait for more from this author!

One last stop is humorous, worry, and full of all the charm that we have come to love from McQuiston. The characters are vibrant and will have you rooting for them and begging to find out what happens. A must read novel!

1.75 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC!

The original premise of One Last Stop excited me. However, it never really stood out as something out of the ordinary. A time travel love story is something I see a lot within the science fiction genre. I was actually quite interested to see how the plot would be executed. On top of that, I was very eager to read the book due to all the hype surrounding it. Unfortunately though, One Last Stop fell extremely flat.

Saniya, how could you?! Yes, yes, I know, it’s a popular book and I am very happy for the author. No one wanted a 2> star review for One Last Stop. BUT, this was dare I say, really bad. Before you scream at me in the comments, allow me to explain myself…

Let’s start with the characters. Our two MCs August and Jane felt very two dimensional, and had an even more superficial relationship. Aside from Jane liking punk rock music, the two seemed to have no personality. Because of this, I was unable to root for them. One major problem I had was with August and Jane doing the nasty on a subway..in public. People can do whatever they want, and I love how unapologetically sapphic this book is. But it made me feel incredibly uncomfy when they started doing it in public.

Luckily, I enjoyed reading about Myla! She was eccentric and book smart, which is one of the best combinations possible if you ask me. The other side characters didn’t keen my interest at all though. Thus when almost 80% of the book was August interacting with the side characters, I couldn’t bring myself to care about their conversations. Furthermore, I also felt as though there were too many people being introduced into the story. Henceforth why I quickly became overwhelmed as more characters were introduced.

In addition, the dialogue was one aspect I had a tough time with. August and her roommates seemed to talk about rather pointless things that added nothing to the plot. I would have been completely fine with this if the dialogue was actually amusing or intriguing. However, the snarky remarks came off as odd and unfunny instead.

The writing is where I had another huge issue with. There was an abundance of rambling that added nothing but ~length~ to the story. The chapters were also incredibly long, and it felt like a chore to push through the book. The time travel aspect also made absolutely no sense at all. This led to me being confused and uninterested.

Overall, One Last Stop was an unenjoyable read for me. The story dragged on way too much, and the jokes just weren’t funny. Despite disliking the book, I recommend this to all the Casey McQuiston fans out there.

--Overall--
Age Rating: 16 and up

TW: Drinking, depression, anxiety, familial death, familial estrangement, missing persons

Final Rating: 3.5/10 or 1.75 stars

This book was a bit of a roller coaster for me. I started off really invested and eager to read but, towards the middle, I found myself somewhat bored and felt as if the plot was going very slowly. Towards the end, it picked up for me again.

One Last Stop is the story of a young, twenty-something, August, who has recently moved to the Flatbush neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY. She moves in with Niko and Myla, a couple, and Wes, a sullen tattoo artist. August is coming to terms with her bisexual identity and her lack of physical experience with either a man or woman. She's left behind her mother in New Orleans. Her childhood was spent helping her mother try and crack the case of her uncle who disappear before August was born.

On her regular commute on the Q, August meets and begins to become enthralled with Jane, another twenty-something who always seems to be on the same train as August. We later find out that Jane is not able to leave the Q and she is not in fact 20-something but a transplant from the 70s who has somehow become stuck. This is where adds a science fiction element I was not expecting.

The plot continues as August and Jane try and figure out Jane's history all the while August begins to fall for Jane. What really tied me to the story were all of the supporting characters: August's roommates, coworkers at Billy's Pancakes, and the drag queens she is introduced to. McQuiston did an amazing job of creating so many characters I found my invested in and who could have whole books written just about them and their lives. Throughout the book, I couldn't stop thinking about how lucky August was to have such a great "family" of people in her life.

Overall, I really liked One Last Stop. I did think that there were times when the story seemed to stall but the plot was something so entirely unique, I kept reading because I needed to know how it would end.

Red White and Royal Blue is one of my absolute favorite books EVER. Needless to say, I was SUPER excited for One Last Stop!

It was unique, light, and inclusive (there are drag queens, a transgender person, and a lesbian relationship, PERFECT!)

I know this book is a romance and Jane and August are the focus of the story. But to me, what I loved the most in this book was the friendship. Friends who are willing to do anything to help, and are always there for you, to make you feel loved and be yourself. This is gold.

The one thing I didn’t like very much were the chapters that felt a little bit dragging, and I just wanted to get to the plot. But I’m sure for some people, this book will be a gigantic 5-star-read!

3.5 stars

McQuiston’s knack for writing humor and charm is on full display here. (I would totally be up for a game of Rolly Bangs. But maybe only once.) The unfolding mystery of it all was really well done. It’s a pretty brilliantly written book. Clever, smart, and paced well. But it was really the characters that got me invested. I wanted to see what happened to Niko & Myla, and Wes & Isaiah, and Billy’s. They were a very enjoyable part of the book.

I looked forward to this book so much, so I am so happy that it delivered better than I expected, while I would've liked not knowing before starting it that Jane was from a different time, it still was really enjoyable to read the whole journey, I also really like how there's a variety of complex and varied characters, not just some extras filling space around the main character, really recommend this book!

This was totally different from Red, White, and Royal Blue. This was suspended in two timelines and sees August trying to navigate both. Jane was a damned delight.

The found family aspect was AMAZING. Also this book was sapphic af. More of that please.

One Last Stop is about a cynical loner August, meeting the charismatic and loveable Jane, who's displaced in time from the 70s.

August and Jane had great chemistry from the get go. They were adorable together, funny and, if you can ignore the ickiness of an NYC subway, quite steamy as well!

The romance was not the only great relationship in this book. I loved all the side characters. They were interesting and unique, they had depth, they were well developed. I loved reading about them, their friendship with August, their relationships with each other so much. This for me just as stronger (if not stronger) than the love story. Such a great execution of found family. Also, reading August come out of her shell, and slowly learn to rely on her new friends was beautiful to see.

The most interesting part of this book for me was the LGBTQIA+ experience, comparing 70s to today. It also helped that some of the actual events that happened back then like the UpStairs Lounge arson attack were interleaved into the story. Seeing the juxtaposition of how Jane and her friends had to live, compared to how August and her friends live today, was quite powerful.

The representation does not end there either, the characters were all from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, beliefs... This also helped build a very strong crew of characters.

One of the best parts of Casey McQuiston's writing is her lyricism. She paints such a beautiful picture with words, it's impossible not to admire. She doesn't just tell you it was a great kiss, she tells you that it was "an open-mouthed exhale, shotgunning summer sunshine."

There were a few weak parts for me, which is why it wasn't a full 5 stars.

First of all, there was a lot of parts of this book that was focused on the mystery aspects of the story. These mystery aspects, however, were not as strong as the interpersonal relationships. Every detail of the mystery happens to work out perfectly, everything fitting into place just so, with minimal difficulty but with timing that manages to extend the story for plot reasons.

Similarly, August's life seems to work out perfectly as well. She's a great example of someone who continuously fails upwards. Somehow, there are no repercussions for all the different ways she messes up, on the contrary, everything works out so well, she ends up somewhere even better than before.

I also found this book slightly too long. It dragged in places for me, making it a tad boring/harder to get through those parts.

Despite these small issues, this book was still a powerful, beautiful story of finding yourself, finding your family of friends, and the LGBTQIA+ experience and history, with a great romance story to boot.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC.

Have you ever read a book and immediately known that it will be one you’re going to be obsessed with? Just like with Red, White and Royal Blue, I knew within a couple chapters of One Last Stop that I was reading a new favorite book. To be honest, I heard the phrases "time traveling lesbians" and "stuck on the subway" and knew that I was going to love this story.

And this book was perfection! Absolute perfection! It was everything my little queer bisexual heart wanted and needed it to be plus so much more! This review could be pages and pages of me raving about how much I loved this book but I will limit myself to five reasons why I loved it so much and why you should go out and immediately buy it.

Reason one is the characters! This book would make an excellent case study on how to write fully formed queer characters that feel so real you want to go get dinner with them. They are diverse in race, gender, and sexuality. I fell in love quickly with prickly, reformed girl detective, August. She was a character that I immediately saw pieces of myself in. And her queer found family is serious friendship goals and I found myself wanting to move into Apartment 6F so I could be part of it. And let’s not forget about Jane. Glorious, soft, riot girl Jane stole my heart as quickly as August did.

Reason two is that this book is compulsively readable. You hit a point in the story where putting the book down is actually painful because you need to know what happens next. I stayed up reading until 1:30am and finished the book with a huge grin and tears on my face and my heart feeling like it grew three sizes too big. And despite it being after midnight, I immediately wanted to reread it after finishing and that is the highest praise I can give a book.

Reason three is because it is a story of finding your people and your place in the world. For me, reading it felt like coming home and getting wrapped in a hug. It was also highly nostalgic for me because it made me miss my own found family I gathered while I was living away from home. And rolly bangs would have totally been something we would have played in our apartments.

Reason four is the romance! Casey McQuiston is a master of writing longing between love interests and this book had all of the longing in not just one romance but two! I'll be honest. If you told me that I would be getting hot and bothered by a subway sex scene before this book, I would have laughed. There were some hot and steamy scenes and they were glorious!

Reason five was the setting in New York City. In this book, the city was almost a character of its own and it made me miss that huge, smelly, and glorious place! McQuiston's description of the magicalness of the subway totally captured me and took me there without me leaving my living room. And the food descriptions in this book made me hungry! I miss being close to diners that have been there decades before you were ever born and where they remember your order when you become a regular. It also made me want a real New York bagel and smear so badly and is something I can't even get close to here in Idaho.

Overall, this book will make you keep turning the pages while you feel all the emotions. I'll be raving about it for months to come and seriously can't recommend it enough already. I absolutely can't wait to read what Casey McQuiston puts out next! I need all of the queer rom-coms in my life!

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley

4.5 stars

Like many of my friends, I was super excited for this one since I absolutely adore McQuiston’s Red, White & Royal Blue — and while it is a distinct type of novel from RWRB, One Last Stop did not disappoint. Both include a fantastically diverse cast of mostly twenty-somethings (including, but far from limited to, a QPOC in the main pairing), nuanced and dynamic relationships of all sorts, a strong sense of setting in terms of both location and time period, nods to queer history, humorous banter / witticisms, and a comfortably-paced narrative flow.

Given that the novel centers on a Lowkey Disaster Bisexual, August Landry, and a Chinese-American gay icon, Jane Su, I (a twenty-something demibisexual Taiwanese-American) was admittedly predisposed to love this if the representation was good. And man oh man, was it ever. August and the members of her queer found family each have delightful quirks, and they’re super supportive of each other, and they love a good party. I also really appreciated that the Asian-American love interest (Jane) was portrayed as sexy but not stereotypically hypersexualized or submissive, and all her memories/experiences are a reminder that American history and queer history also belong to queer Asian-Americans, even though they are often overlooked in queer American stories.

I have to confess that I don’t always love a sci-fi twist, but the incorporation of time travel actually worked quite well for me. Of course it was a great way to sneak in some queer American history, but it was also a fascinating complication to the main romance as they try to figure out who Jane is, how she got into this situation, how to free her, what will happen after they free her. There isn’t really room for contrived drama, which works out just fine since there are already ups and downs, joys and frustrations, victories and setbacks.

Finally, food may not be a central focus of the novel but I contend that it is a love language as well as a carrier of culture. So I was delighted to discover a few mouthwatering mentions I want to try for myself: the Su Special sandwich, the fah sung thong (Chinese peanut candy) mentioned by August’s roommate Myla, Jane’s favorite chocolate chip NY-style bagels with peanut butter, Wes’s orange cardamom scones with maple chai drizzle. Also NY-style pizza, of course. (And if any of these culinary experiments turn out well, they just might be the subject of future posts!)

One Last Stop has less of a cotton-candy (what some call fanfiction-y) feel than Red, White & Royal Blue but is still a relatively light read, with plenty of heartwarming and hilarious moments. It’s very New Adult and very NYC and very queer, and very, very enjoyable.

Jane is out of August’s league, both in terms of characterization and just general coolness (I’m not convinced August is a fun hang tbh!!), but I still had fun reading this. Not as good as Red, White & Royal Blue, but to be fair, that one is hard to beat.

Wow this book is a trip unto it self! Much more exciting than a subway trip! It’s a missed connections ad (sort of) come to life as a story. I don’t want to give too much away, but when August spills coffee all over herself on the Q subway, who does she but the most intriguing girl. A connection is made. As fate would have it, August is able to find her again, and start to unravel the mystery of her and New York.

I loved characters, and the settings. There are many unique personalities. LGBTQIA+ is extremely well represented, as well as different races and cultures. Honestly the book is crazy diverse. It also has some interesting history in it.

Boom was amazing, and impossible to pin down or put down.

Another masterpiece by Casey McQuiston. She never misses!! I loved the characters so much and the wlw representation made me feel so happy and seen. Go read this book!!

This book completely and utterly enthralled me. I fell head over heels for August, Jane and their spectacularly fabulous band of friends.  I developed such a deep connection with these two young women who should have never met in the way they did. But they did meet and the journey they go through and the mysteries they solve just stole me away to a place where friends have each other's backs. Where who you are to them is not determined by the color of your skin or your sexuality. It's based on connections and the goodness within everyone.

August and Jane each come from different times but what if even time cannot keep them from finding their one true love. What if fate and destiny is determined to push them together even when it seems impossible. 

To say I loved this book is a vast understatement.  I absolutely adored every single moment spent between the pages.

*Received ARC through NetGalley.  Voluntarily reviewed *

I adored this book so much. Casey McQuiston was able to make you fall in love with all of the characters, as well as the location of the book. Each character brought a different dynamic to the story - both main characters and side characters. I felt as though I could connect with each character, no matter how long they were in the story. Alongside the characters, being in the middle of New York was also a major part of the story. I would fall in love with each new location that was mentioned. While this book is a romance between two characters, it also felt like a love letter to NYC.

I would both laugh and cry all the whole way through this book. I would recommend this to anyone who wants a great LGBTQ+ romance with a bit of a twist.

There was so much about this that I loved, from the diner that felt like home and became her family. To her roommates that were quirky, fun, loving, and just so supportive. There was so much representation in this book and I loved it. The yearly drag queen parties that brought everyone together and made them feel so welcome, and like an extended family.

What I didn't really love was the time travel element. I enjoyed their relationship and how it built over time. I liked how August's energy was what was keeping her rooted in the present, just not with the time travel aspect.

It also was a bit longer than I would have liked. If you are willing to suspend belief, and enjoy time travel stories I think you might like this one. All of the characters were wonderfully different.

I am not much of a romance reader. Last year Red, White, and Royal Blue was the book that everyone was talking about. I had major FOMO so I read it and LOVED it. So when One Last Stop came out I immediately requested it vecause I had to know what was next...and I was not at all diaappointed. I loved August, I loved Jane. I adored their band of misfits and loved how this book was pro-LGBTQA and I pretty much loved everything about everyone in this book. The ending left me completely satisfied and I CANNOT WAIT to see what McQuiston does next. 5 stars!

THIS BOOK. The queer rom-com I would have killed to have read growing up.

Casey McQuiston has taken the success of Red, White, and Royal Blue and transformed it into yet another hit: One Last Stop. Our protagonist, August Landry, a Louisiana girl with a penchant for minimalism, stumbles her way into Jane Su's life one January day, coffee-stained shirt and all. "Hey, coffee girl." What ensues from August's infamous ride on the Q train is a tale of love, loss, found family, and finding your place. Myla, Niko, and Wes, August's roommates above the Popeye's are a cast of characters that as a queer person myself I could easily find in my own life. The nuance of Casey's writing is the feelings she elicits from the first page. You can smell Billy's pancakes, hear the bustle of NYC foot traffic on the Q and the screeching brakes of the train, feel the butterflies that float in your stomach when August sees Jane, imagine the taste of the sampling of bagels Jane tries to regain her memories, and feel the heated touch of Jane when she hands August a scarf to cover up her coffee spill. The banter, the drag queens, the pure feelings of moving to New York to try to figure out who you are and where you belong... these eternal themes, this endearing story, these unmissable characters, and this heartstrings-tugging love are a triumph. I am so damn grateful to live during the time of Casey McQuiston.