Review: One Last Stop

Let me start by saying this book had so many things in it that I’m always drawn to in a good book!

So, let’s talk about them!

One Last Stop is a story about a young woman named August Landry, a cynical pseudo-detective, who meets a mysteriously attractive woman on the subway, Jane Su. But Jane is no ordinary girl, she’s stuck on the subway, displaced in time. (This is not a spoiler, it’s in the blurb!)

It’s set against the backdrop of modern NYC with vividly diverse characters. This book is a wonderful melting pot of contemporary fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, romance and magical realism.

I really liked August as a protagonist and through Casey McQuiston’s writing could feel what she was feeling, like her attraction and adoration of Jane, as well as sympathised with her history and her indecisive nature. She’s been jumping around from degree to degree, not really knowing what she wants her future to look like or who she wants to be. The people she meets in the city beautifully provide her with a chance to live a vibrant life full of colour, which eventually leads to her self-discovery.

I’m a sucker for a book set in New York and I’ve fallen in love with magical realism, so I think I was destined to like this one because McQuiston pulled it off so well. I liked Red White and Royal Blue, but I really loved this one.

There were some moments where I lost a bit of interest, just a few chapters that lagged a bit in the middle, but what kept me going was a lot of the stuff around Jane and her displacement and how they could get her back to her time. The fact that I couldn’t guess or predict what was going to happen there kept the fire burning.

Overall this was a great book to read, it was fun, it was sad and complicated - much like its characters and on its pages was a world that felt real and someplace I’d want to be.

Would highly recommend picking this one up!

Rating: ****(4.5/5)