Title: One Last Stop
Author: Casey McQuiston
Publisher: Macmillan
Publication date: January 2022 (UK)
Genre: Romance
Source: Library
Description: For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.
But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.
Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.
Review: So considering it says in the description of this book that Jane has been thrown out of time, I thought it took a long time for the book to get to that point. I’d have loved to read that first section of the book, before August and Jane figure it out, without knowing that twist. But knowing it, it made that first bit feel a bit weird and strange, like a lot of suspense was being built when the reader already knew what it was being built up to.
Moving on though: this is a sweet, slow burn romance, although once Jane and August do get together, there are some very detailed, steamy scenes. I really liked how their romance built up, going from chance encounters, through August’s slight obsession, to an actual friendship and more. Predictably the main problem point in their relationship is that Jane is effectively a ghost and therefore there are some limits to their future together. But for a fairly straightforward romance, rather than a more elaborate fantasy book, that was absolutely fine for me.
What I found much more interesting and heartening to read was how August transforms over the novel from a very self-reliant person, keeping her secrets to herself and ready to uproot at any moment, into someone who lets in some people and becomes friends. She gets drawn into a really loving, caring community, which also happens to be a very queer one. There’s the let’s-club-together-to-save-this-treasured-community-business trope, which I always enjoy, and as part of that August and her new friends organise a charity drag cabaret. This honestly made me tear up, reading some of those scenes.
That care, and love, in a community of people who have historically been persecuted, and in the very city where the story is set, was really powerful to me. I loved that through Jane’s memories of being a lesbian in 1970s USA, we see a real contrast and echo of August’s present day experiences. It also taught me a little USA queer history, with some things that as a Brit I hadn’t heard about before.
Overall I enjoyed this book, despite it being very different in tone and pace to Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, which I’d previously read and adored. One Last Stop is a romance I recommend if you like your fantasy as a lighter touch element, or if you just want a sweet contemporary romance.
