Book Review: ‘One Last Stop’ by Casey McQuiston
I fell in love with the way that Casey McQuiston creates characters so real, flawed and tangible, and connections so intense and vivid, that I felt like I’d known them personally for years when I read ‘Red, White and Royal Blue’ back in 2019 and it set my expectations high for McQuiston’s second novel, ‘One Last Stop’.
McQuiston’s sophomore novel is a sapphic, time-slip romance set in Brooklyn, and it’s a complete treat. Here’s the full 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.
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.
I didn’t race through ‘One Last Stop’, it’s not that kind of book. It’s a book to savour and I definitely did that. There’s infinite richness and depth to the characterisation in this novel, and even as the group of central characters widened and developed, that depth wasn’t diminished; it just moved to envelop the bigger roles that they grew into. The whole cast is diverse too, inclusive of gender identity, sexuality, race and even class and social status as well. It was effortless and a natural reflection of life in Brooklyn.
Though we all know that we’re really wanting to know about the sizzling romance between August and Jane. And it really was sizzling.
Honestly, some of the more steamy scenes that took place made me blush because there was so much behind it; genuine connections, affection, and a real spark between them. I believed in their feelings for each other and truly rooted for them every step of the way. Steamy scenes without this background are perfectly great, but that extra dose of feeling makes them so much more powerful and a more natural part of the novel. However, the thought of that much intimacy on a disgusting subway train made me feel a bit nauseous if I lingered on it too much… Those trains are really, truly grim.
If you want to hear more about what Sarah and I thought about ‘One Last Stop’, you can head over to our Instagram and watch the IGTV live discussion we had on the book at the end of last month. Spoiler: we both loved it.
Have you read ‘One Last Stop’ yet? What did you think?
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Written by Sophie
