Similar to Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, this book has been zooming around the internet (and being discussed very positively) since shortly after it came out. This is also a romance, which isn’t my usual genre, but as you guys know I do make exceptions for books that are, you know, just good books. As usual with romance books, I was a little hesitant and uncertain going into it. I don’t like romances that are overly sweet, overly coincidental or overly dramatic. I like them to have some reality to them, have flawed characters that I can root for – and not be based on annoying tropes like love triangles. Luckily this book wasn’t any of those things. Actually, it was just a great read.
The story starts with August, a young woman who has had trouble finding a place to fit in. She’s moved around, tried multiple different universities, and just doesn’t feel right anywhere. When we meet her she’s interviewing for a potential room in an apartment in New York before beginning her next university course. Her new roommates are interesting from the off – there’s Nico, who’s an honest to goodness psychic; Mila who is an artist, working on a project that involves frog bones in some way (she’s moving into Nico’s room, hence the roommate search); Wes who’s a bit of a mystery and doesn’t seem to come out of his room much; and Wes’s dog, Noodles. It’s a small apartment that’s run down, quirky, and more than a little crooked. Literally, the floors are slanted (the basis for a game involving a rolling chair, so it ain’t all bad). The shower takes ten minutes to heat up (if you’re nice to it, 20 if you’re not) and the oven doesn’t go above 350. So August is a little skeptical as to whether she’s going to find it a comfortable spot to live. But she has no time to search for another option, and it’s not like it’ll take her long to vacate if necessary since all she owns is five boxes and an air mattress.
It comes as a huge surprise to her that before long, this odd assortment of roommates begins to feel like friends – even something approaching family. She gets a job at a local pancake diner and begins meeting other people who orbit her roommates – a sharp-edged Czech waitress, a drag queen called Annie Depressant (or Isiah) and several others. But the person who will have the biggest impact on August is a girl she meets on the subway after spilling an entire cup of coffee down her shirt. Jane, in her torn jeans, red Converse and black leather jacket, offers August her scarf. Soon August is timing her commute so she’ll be on the same train as Jane, and they’re starting to get to know one another. But things are about to get complicated beyond anything August could have imagined. Not just because Jane is the most attractive person August has ever met, but because, impossibly, Jane has been transported from the 1970s and can’t set foot outside of the subway train.
What follows is a mix of supernatural mystery story and developing romance. It could have been cheesy, hard to buy into, or overly complex in terms of supernatural explanations, but somehow it wasn’t. The plot is evenly paced, the drama is there but not unbearable, and the character development is fantastic. Every character in August’s life slowly gets revealed and/or changes over the course of the novel, and we get to know them and love them along with her. But the part I think I enjoyed the most was that Jane’s backstory meant that we had the opportunity to experience both modern New York and the America of the 1970s that Jane knew. We hear about what it was like for LGBT+ youth in that time, the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the constant threat experienced by any out LGBT+ people, and the ways in which families were torn apart by all of this. I found that part of the novel, the true and heartbreaking history of the LGBT+ community in the mid-20th-century, gave the story so much more emotional impact for me. It also created a brilliant juxtaposition between the 1970s and the 21st century that means we get to really think about how far things have come (not forgetting, of course, the challenges that still exist and the forces trying to reverse progress) and what is owed to the extraordinarily brave LGBT+ people who came before. But also the pain and damage they endured and how much they had to suffer to be who they were. It’s a great reminder, too, that not everyone now is lucky enough to have the support of family and community.
I was surprised by the impact this book had on me. Yes, it’s a sweet romance with some racy bits and some drama. But that wasn’t the main part of the book, instead it’s heavily plot-drive as there are two mysteries to solve (the first is what’s happening to Jane and what to do about it, the second is a missing persons case August’s mom has been working on for decades that keeps drawing August back in). And the friendships in this book are just as strong – in some ways stronger – than the romantic ones. This book left me with such a feeling of love and acceptance, such a sense of joy in the community’s coming together to celebrate and support one another in whatever way was needed. I loved learning some of the backstory of each character, and that there were moments of connection between August and each one of them. It was so much more than a romance, in a beautiful way (though it definitely doesn’t skimp in that department either, for those who are looking for it!). It surprises and pleases me to say that this is absolutely one I’d recommend if it looks like your cup of tea. I might even see myself re-reading this one rainy day!
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. – Goodreads
Book Title: One Last Stop
Author: Casey McQuiston
Series: No
Edition: Audiobook (Libby)
Published By: Griffin
Released: June 1, 2021
Genre: Fiction, LGBTQ+, Supernatural/Time Travel (?), Romance
Pages: 418
Date Read: January 9-11, 2025
Rating: 8.5/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 3.91/5 (259,293 ratings)