DNF at 21% after the MC mentioned being Jewish for a second time and I learned the author's perspective/opinion on Israel and Palestine.

Did this author split my soul into two pieces and name them Zoe and Oakley? It sure feels that way!

Zoe, after a disastrous end to their first semester at college, has decided to take a cross-country train trip home to Seattle for Thanksgiving break. We get to experience both timelines throughout the book, learning more about what happened at college and how it’s affecting them in the present timeline.

On the train, they meet Oakley, a blonde lesbian who’s reconciling with leaving the high-demand religion of Mormonism. She moved to New York City in search of community, but ended up feeling more lonely and out of place than ever. The train leaves both characters with nowhere else to be, and the two find comfort and connection in each other as they open up about what they’re going through.

The amount of care and intention that went into crafting this book is clear, and as a queer ex-Mormon myself, it means a lot to see many of my personal experiences represented so well in a fictional character. It’s also powerful how Zoe’s internal monologue is told throughout the book, as we get their self-discovery of their gender and acceptance that they don’t have to have it all figured out.

On top of that, the writing is impeccable, and every single character stands out. The connections Zoe and Oakley make on the train are palpable, not only with each other but also the other passengers. Aya, an adorable 9-year-old girl on the train with her mother, is a standout character who is endearing and realistic in all of the best ways.

The romantic storyline is also beautifully done. Because of the temporary nature of the train trip, it feels natural and authentic how the characters are drawn to each other. It stands out that they communicate well and encourage honesty in one another, showing depth beyond physical attraction (though that chemistry is also strong and well-done). All of the rom-com beats I love come through strongly, but my expectations are also subverted in the perfect ways at every turn. I’d be laughing and giddy one moment and crying the next, and that’s just how I like it.

All of those things make this book both the perfect rom-com and an extremely important and valuable book for young queer people who are also in the midst of figuring themselves out. It’s powerful to see stories like this in fiction, both for the representation that makes people like me feel seen, and for the empathy it can hopefully foster in people with different lived experience. It’s highly bingeable and fun to read, but also full of depth and real situations. I highly recommend it if any of those things sound relatable to you or anyone you know. It might hit closer to home than you expect, but in the best way possible!

Zoe is returning to Seattle from New York via train at Thanksgiving after a bad first semester in college at Cornell. While on the train, she meets Oakley, and this book is about their burgeoning relationship while flashing back to Zoe at college. I loved the train trip and am now inspired to take the train cross-country as well. The exploration of gender identity was interesting as well. Several instances didn't quite work for me, but older teens who like LGBTQ relationship books should like this.

Leaving the Station is a compelling coming-of-age story. It centers around identity, through thoughtful conversations around sexuality, gender, religion (both Jewish and Mormon), and the ongoing question of one’s place in the world. I found it engaging and thought provoking with often vulnerable exchanges between the two main characters, Zoe and Oakley.

The cross-country train ride setting was a brilliant choice. It created a sense of forced proximity that allowed Zoe and Oakley to not only get to know each other, but to confront themselves in ways they had been avoiding in their normal lives off the train. There was also this beautiful flow of “all walks of life” woven into the story through their fellow passengers, which added richness and dimension to the story and their conversations.

I really loved Aya, she is a young and often opinionated train-goer that pops in throughout Zoe's time on the train. Her presence provided comic relief at just the right moments, and she was beloved by all once their train ride came to an end.

The characters’ struggles with identity felt authentic and deeply human. Their emotional journeys were depicted in ways that will resonate with many readers, especially those in the LGBTQ+ community and I personally felt a strong sense of connection and belonging while reading.

Overall, this is a thoughtful and well-crafted read that leans more contemporary than romantic. The romance element is certainly present and meaningful though. The author did a wonderful job capturing the uncertainty, hope, and clarity that can come from soul-searching, connection, and the willingness to start again.

This book is a journey through identity, heartbreak, and unexpected connection. It’s raw, funny, and full of those quiet moments that hit you right in the chest.

I’m not the target reader for this book—I prefer a faster pace. The opening is a rambling scene showing the point-of-view character riding on a train, with no actual plot.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Zoe was both charming and extremely frustrating. Their journey was certainly relatable, but how they actually got there seemed a little extreme. The whole thing with Alden was honestly so confusing, I get why maybe it felt needed, but I feel like there could have been a better situation than leading a guy on in order to discover that you don't want to be with him, just like him. It made it hard to truly care about her struggle when she was making so many stupid decisions. I didn’t really start to sympathize with Zoe until she entered the train and interacting with everyone, especially Oakley. Once you get to know more behind the scenes of her thinking process and how deeply she cares about Oakley and even Aya, I found myself liking her much more and totally rooting for her romantic reunion with Oakley.

Oakley may have been a bit unlikeable in the beginning, but she quickly grew on me. Even though it took her longer to open up, I feel like once she did, you couldn't help but love her. Her reasoning behind her religion and beliefs were very interesting, but I’m still not sure why she made the decision that she did in the end. Her perspective on life and courage to go out and explore the world on her own was very admirable, even if it didn’t work out quite the way she wanted. But I still feel like her continuous wavering about certain aspects of life was a bit frustrating, especially how harsh she was with Zoe sometimes. Her and Zoe definitely had some very real and intense conversations that seemed very mature for their age. I wish a little more time had been spent on the details of her upbringing and what exactly happened in New York that led to the train just like we were able to get the details of Zoe’s past.

The side characters definitely made this story. Edward and Aya alone were absolutely phenomenal. The old couple added some wisdom and unexpected craziness that was fun to read too. Even though it was clear that several of these shenanigans would never happen in real life, it was nice to imagine them in the story. I have never been on a train for very long, but I always imagined what it would be like to spontaneously take one across the country with no expectations in mind, and this story helped make that come true. It was incredibly immersive and I felt like I was just another passenger along for the ride right beside these characters and seeing everything unfold. It was nice seeing multiple stories and perspectives intertwined and how connected we are even without knowing. It was especially wonderful seeing the characters evolve and change so much in just a short amount of time. I know some experiences are like that and its nice to be reminded that someone or something unexpected can totally change your life in the best possible way.

I also enjoyed how Zoe and Oakley’s narrative ran parallel to each other and how they were able to not only find a way to connect their stories, but find a way to help each other grow and validate each other’s feelings. While their journeys and upbringing differed, their struggle and need to run away from their situations was what made them able to understand each other in a way no one else could. Their deep emotional bond was something I never would have expected could happen in a situation like they were in. They both had so many questions and things to figure out and the fact that they were able to have such incredible conversations about heavy topics such as gender identity, religion, and different labels, and get through it together was both hopeful and endearing. I’m not always a fan of grand gestures, but this one was truly one to remember!

Some thing I definitely did not enjoy though was how much time was spent on Alden. Honestly a few flashbacks would have been fine, I didn’t need or want their whole detailed story. What I craved was more time on the train and wanting to see more of Zoe and Oakley’s life after the train. So the ending for me was very disappointing, especially because we had so little time with them together, I wanted so much more of how they planned to stay in touch and if they would ever be able to explore a serious relationship. It just felt so rushed and abruptly ended. While I loved Zoe’s relationship with plants and her journey for discovering her passion in the greenhouse, I was not sold on the decision for the short epilogue coming from the perspective of the plant… Anyway besides getting over the over the top shenanigans and some of the characters saying or doing things a bit uncharacteristic for their age, I really enjoyed where most of the story went, the train ride backdrop, and how important themes were incorporated in such a unique and magical way!

HOUGHTS

I absolutely adored this book. I adored that this is a book about gender, about sexuality, about wrestling with new and different identities, and I adored that this isn't a coming out story. It's a coming-of-age story instead. My only qualm is that some of these questions feel bigger than the questions most YA readers are asking. They're not too big for a YA reader, but they're maybe, just slightly more interesting conversations to have when you're older than this market demographic.


PROS
All Alone: I really like the way this book looks at loneliness. It's a difficult read and a very real one. This book wrestles with branching out, with reaching for something new because you need to, because where you came from was slowly killing you. And it wrestles with the impulse to go back to that place, that time, that community that was suffocating you because at least back then you had someone, unlike now where you have no one. This is a book about trying something because you need to try something and having that something just... not work. Which is hard and sad and lonely but very real.

Figuring It Out: I loved that this isn't a book about having the answers. It's a book about asking the questions. So many queer YA books are about coming out and all the pressures that entails (which is fair enough), so it is always nice to read a different type of LGBTQ+ experience. This is a story about figuring it out, even if that figuring-out is messy. It's about asking what gender means and what sexuality means and questioning what we thought we knew about ourselves. It's about trying new things when we get to new places and realizing what does or doesn't work (or at least asking if something could be right). And I love that.

Just For the Ride: Even though some of the questions and the conversations this book revolves around are quite heavy, it has an overall magical quality to it because this slow-moving cross-country train just feels... cozy. It's a whirlwind romance of a coming-of-age story with just a touch of holiday feeling (though the messy kind of holiday feeling), and I loved that. On this train, as the chilly countryside rushes by, it's the perfect time and place to talk and to clash and to work out angsty problems while falling kinda, sorta head-over-heels in love.


CONS
Mature Content: I mentioned above that I think some of the conversations in this book go beyond the scope of general YA interests, and I will reiterate that here. But I'll also mention that, even in other ways, this book is definitely on the upper side of the YA market when it comes to age-appropriate content. We're figuring things out. We're experimenting, and some of that experimenting goes beyond what younger readers will be ready or interested in reading about. It's exploration in the vein of Looking For Alaska: definitely appropriate for teens but probably only for those ready to ask those kinds of questions and have those types of experiences themselves. For the twelve or thirteen-year-old kid, this book might prove a bit too mature.

On Her Nerves: These lovebirds are constantly on each other's nerves, pushing buttons and bringing up touchy subjects. This adds a lot of tension to the plot, more than my particular preference. I don't think it was bad. It was great, in fact, for character growth, and it honestly felt pretty realistic, all things considered. But it was a bit too much for my own personal tastes.

Mundane: This book requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I loved it. Don't get me wrong. But if you're looking for something realistic, you aren't getting it here. Nobody's really falling in love on a three-day train journey. It's fun to think about, sure. That's part of the magic of this romance. But you're suspending your disbelief for this one, and if that's hard for you, well, this love story might not be your cup of tea.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10/10
Fans of John Green's Looking For Alaska will like the difficult questions and growing pains that come with this book. Those who adored the whirlwind holiday romance in Edward Underhill's This Day Changes Everything will love falling in love on this train.

really charming and interesting story. the characters finding themselves is really effective and heartwrming `. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

There were things about this book that I loved (gender exploration, overall premise, Zoe and Oakley) and other things that I enjoyed less (over-the-top side characters, unnecessary side plots) but overall a very sweet story about how it’s okay to not know everything about the future and simply enjoy what the present has to offer!

Rating: 4.5/5

I requested this on NetGalley purely based on it being sapphic and on a train and I really enjoyed One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, and this didn't disappoint. I really enjoyed the way that Zoe's struggle with gender was written and her journey to finding herself while also journeying back home to her parents who will be disappointed she dropped out of college.

I liked the cast of supporting characters just as much as the main characters, from Aya, a precocious girl in her last year of single digits who loves Percy Jackson, to Edward, the snack conductor who just wants everyone on the train to have coffee and snacks to tide them over on the trip.

From the first page to the last, this was a well written journey of self identity and I enjoyed it all.

In Leaving the Station by Jake Maia Arlow we meet college student Zoe who is taking the train cross country back from college in NY to her home in Seattle. Zoe’s first semester of college didn’t turn out like she planned. Instead of exploring being an out lesbian and finding her people, she found herself with a boyfriend and so wrapped up in him and what he represented to her that she didn’t maintain her friendships and skipped a lot of classes. The train ride home is an opportunity for Zoe to delay hard talks with her parents and avoid her awkward break-up with her now ex-boyfriend. While on the train Zoe meets Oakley, another passenger who is on her way home after not finding the life she thought she would in NY. Throughout the train ride Zoe and Oakley grow closer and bond with other passengers as they get to be honest with themselves and others.

The chapters jumped between Zoe on the train now and Zoe’s first semester of college. I really enjoyed the scenes on the train. Zoe and Oakley were cute together. Watching them challenge each other and explain themselves as they grappled with the effects of their previous decisions was very compelling. Also, the extended cast of characters on the train were great additions to the story. It seems like everyone who takes the train has their own story and something that might be trying to run from.

Having Zoe’s backstory unfold through the book was a bit of a challenge. There were so many negative possibilities that could have happened based on the buildup, that I was anxious that it would be something potentially very negative. I was relieved that while her first semester had its struggles and some uncomfortable moments there wasn’t any point where Zoe was in any sort of danger.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It captured all the feelings of being 18. Maybe you’re a bit selfish but in part because you’re trying to figure out who you are while letting go of the expectations that helped define you up until then. This book was filled with all the sweetness and contradictions of youth.

Thank you Jake Maia Arlow, HarperCollins Children’s Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley, Storytide, and HarperCollins Children's Books for this advanced copy! You can pick up Leaving the Station on August 19, 2025.

This story was both heartwarming and thought-provoking in the best way. Much like our protagonist, Zoe, we're figuring out how they got onto this train and where everything went wrong in their life right before boarding. Before leaving for fall break to head back to Seattle, Zoe's college life had fallen apart. They wanted a fresh start as they explored their identity and sexuality, but life quickly through a wrench Zoe's way in the form of Alden.

Their relationship, while ultimately not long-lasting, showed Zoe that she doesn't need to hide who she is or who she wants to be. Gender and sexuality aren't straightforward, and just because one person is compelling doesn't mean they're the right fit romantically. Enter Oakley, who challenges Zoe in every way but also relates to them unexpectedly.

I was also moved by the themes of friendship in this story. Especially in college, when friendships can feel both fleeting and eternal, the pain Zoe endured with the Tees really got me. But it also felt like a quintessential part of the college experience.

All that is to say, if you want a wonderful sapphic romance dissecting transitional periods in life and how tumultuous growing up and figuring yourself out can be, this is your book!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

As someone who is gay with a lot of religious trauma, I'm convinced this book was written for me. Zoe and Oakley are both making the long train journey from New York to Washington. As they meet on the train, they connect in a way they didn't think could be possible while also working through their traumas.

This book is heart wrenching while also swoon worthy at the same time. It explores the complexities of gender, religion, and relationships.


TW: gender discussion, internalized homophobia, religious trauma

DNF at 14%. I’m feeling very mixed on dual timeline books lately, and especially in contemporaries, where they’re rarely compellingly executed. This one didn’t compel me or draw me to the characters.

Once again a great book, about love and finding yourself on the read and fighting complet and gender normative.

Huge fan of the recent queer coming-of-age books being published. This is now the third or fourth one I've read in the last year and I half, and it makes me feel good to read about everyone's different experiences in the LGBTQ+ community.

It’s so important to read about the different stories queer people, because they aren’t always super sad or amazingly happy all the time. Leaving the Station introduces you to Zoe’s journey of identity, love, and friendship as she tries to figure out her life and reflects on her first semester of college. What Zoe doesn’t expect is to meet Oakley, who is the complete opposite of Zoe but struggles in her own (queer) ways. The two of them help each other more than they will ever imagine on this cross-country train.

I could not believe how fast I read this book. Big fan of Jake Maia Arlow after reading How to Excavate a Heart, so I knew I was going to be all over this book.

Thank you, HaperCollins Children’s Books and Storytide, for the ARC!

Leaving the Station is a heartfelt coming of age story following Zoe on a cross country train ride as she unpacks her identity, queerness, and sense of community.


This was such a quick and engaging read. I finished it in just four hours and loved how much heart it packed into a short book. The dual timeline explores lesbian identity, gender discovery, and religious deconstruction as Zoe and Oakley figure themselves out, fall for each other, and search for a place to truly belong. This is a great pick for YA and New Adult readers looking for something thoughtful, affirming, and easy to connect with.

Thank you to HarperCollins and NetGalley for an ARC of Leaving the Station in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was the sweetest YA romance, filled with self discovery and growth.

Characters: The main characters of this book are both young, and really learning to be themselves. the character growth is beautiful, and I loved each second. I wish we could see them a few years down the road though.

Plot: The plot of this is truly about self discovery. Who is Zoe, what do they want in life, what choices will they make. and I loved it.

Setting: The book mainly takes place on a train (unique), with some flashbacks to NY. I loved the setting because it was so unique and allowed us to meet so many new characters.

Target Audience: This book is definitely upper YA focused (16+), and for anyone who loves LGBTQ+, and romance novels.

Writing: The writing was super easy and enjoyable to read. each character felt different to read and i enjoyed that.

Pacing: The book is quite slow, but that feels fitting for it being on a 3-4 day train ride.

Rating/Overall Thoughts: Overall, I enjoyed this book, and loved just about everything. it made me happy to read, and had me rooting for the characters while also keeping me curious about their past. 4/5

Giving this 4 stars. It's an easy and enjoyable read, with a fun cast of characters, and surprisingly deep discussions surrounding topics like religion and gender.