A contemporary romance novel with a touch of sci-fi? Sign me up! I absolutely fell in love with Casey McQuiston's writing when I read Red, White & Royal Blue in 2019. I had high expectations for this one and was not at all disappointed. One Last Stop was such a joy to read and checks all my boxes. It has found family, quirky characters, hilarious dialog, and swoon-worthy moments. I don’t want to give too much away but here are some buzz words to pique your interest: pancakes, NYC subway, drag shows, 70s nostalgia, music, and a couple of mysteries to be solved. One Last Stop is genre-bending fun and I absolutely adored it.

August moves to New York. She's 23. She's trying to finish college. She's waiting tables at a pancake diner. On the subway she meets an impossibly good-looking girl with a leather jacket and a lot of mysterious charm who tells her that she smells like pancakes. Since it's a romance novel, they start to, uhm, like each other. But you know, the impossibly good-looking girl on the subway with a perfect leather jacket always has a secret and in this case, she's a punk lesbian from the 1970s who was displaced from her time and has been stuck on the Q for like, 45 years. August has to figure out how to get her off the Q before the Q closes for construction at the end of the summer, while also navigating college and a job and roommate stuff and life stuff and family stuff. There is not only romance, but coming-out angst, intergenerational gay shame, and revolutionary gay love. So you get summertime in New York + 20s-something angsty queer romance, a little mystery, a little bit of a broken space/time continuum, a lot of drag queens and brunch and a random psychic medium roommate. This is basically a perfect book, and I would follow Casey McQuiston into the sun.

Casey McQuiston LOVES their characters. You can tell they are as obsessed with them as we are. I am sure they could make each of their favorite play lists and tell you their favorite book when they were 19 and their favorite hang-over remedy and what their first pet was. That adoration shines through in every interaction and conversation. The banter feels legitimate. The 1970s/2020s queer New York settings feel earnest and lived in. Every kiss stops time. The whole book feels authentic, urgent, sexy, un-put-downable. This will rip a hole in the time/space continuum of your heart and then heal it.

The worst part of this book is that Casey McQuistion doesn’t have 50 more books in their back catalog for me to read. Write faster, Casey!

FURTHERMORE I loved the narrator of the audio book. Good job, you.

I received a free ARC of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for my honest review and I also bought a copy of the audio book. All my opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this novel but wasn't head over heels. The magic realism felt gimmicky and I really wanted to see the two characters fall in love with each other outside of the subway. Because of the subway, the steamy parts were quite tame and rushed. I also found the first few chapters difficult to get through because the characters felt so tokenistic. I love diversity in my novels (and enjoyed it as the novel went along), but it felt very character outline in its set up. I enjoyed the converging mystery lines.

I loved this book, and can’t think of a bad thing to say! The characters were compelling, well developed, and fun to read about. I thought the magic/sci fi/supernatural elements were super well done, not too overblown for the tone of realistic fiction but also fully realized and with internal logic, and integral to the emotion of the plot. Also, the ending still manages to be a surprise even though it seems like it will be obvious bc it’s a romance! This book was so fun and emotionally engaging, I want to hang out with these characters and be their friends, and I loved the tacitly included queer history primer.

This book is squarely new adult, there is definitely sexual content and the characters are all living post college/end of college/non college adult lives. I will say the sex scenes are not super /specific/, so go ahead and put it on your YA shelf.

There are also trans characters, and gender-squishy elements that I appreciated.

I'm new to the romance genre, but I think One Last Stop is a great entry! It follows twenty-something August as she has a belated coming of age in New York City, and falls in love with a girl who got stuck on the Q train (and in time) in the 1970s. I ultimately enjoyed this book, but had an interesting reading experience. The side characters and love interest read like Manic Pixie Dream Girls (hey, if Big Dick Energy is gender neutral, I think MPDG are too). The tweeness was so very twee. I actually stopped reading at about 60%, read two other books and then came back to it. The break made the characters less annoying, so if you have the same problem, I'd recommend reading this one along with something else.

Also, mild spoiler, I guess (but it IS a romance book, so is this really a spoiler?), but if you set your sex scenes in a place that you've routinely described as smelling like urine and being covered in disgusting foreign substances, well, I will not find your sex scene to be sexy.

Anyway, while I didn't love the characters, I ultimately did enjoy the book! I've already recommended it and will continue to do so.

Red, White and Royal Blue was one of my favorite books of 2020, so I was anxiously awaiting this book. I was not disappointed! Casey McQuiston writes with such a different voice, that if I didn't know better, I would've thought someone else wrote it! I loved so many things about it, I can't focus on just one thing! I loved the characters! Each and every one of them, even the side characters were so richly developed unique! I want to move into the apartment with August, Mila, Nico and Wes! I love them and feel like I know them all! And it doesn't stop there! Isaiah from across the hall, who's in love with Wes, Lucy, Winston and Jerry the crew from Billy's you will grow to love. And let's not forget Jane, our time traveling, leather jacket wearing, time-traveling girl from the 70's.

This is a chaotic, romance that mostly takes place on the subway. LOL. It's crazy! This books was so much fun and not like anything I've read before. August meets Jane on the Q-line of the subway and and we learn that Jane has been there since the 70's. How we don't know. But our girl, August, who has a flare for detective work, tries to figure out not only how this happened. But how can they get her off the train? And if they can, will she go back to her time.....or will she stay?

I cried! I cheered for them! I laughed! Casey McQuiston has done it again! She has become and auto-buy for me, for sure!

I loved this. Casey McQuiston has a way of capturing the queer experience unlike any other. I did prefer Red White and Royal Blue but this was excellent.

"It’s probably going to break my heart, and it’s still worth it."

I will not hide that I have high expectations for this one, since I freaking loved her other book!I adored this one it was so lovely, I loved the story line I find it refreshing!

'The first time August met Jane, she fell in love with her for a few minutes, and then stepped off the train. That’s the way it happens on the subway—you lock eyes with someone, you imagine a life from one stop to the next, and you go back to your day as if the person you loved in between doesn’t exist anywhere but on that train.'

Jane and August had such a great chemistry.They are opposites who fit so perfectly to each otherIt was heartwarming, romantic and sweet.Their relationship is incredibly tender, with this couple the author takes the reader to another level.



I cannot wait to see what else she has for us!

I am so in love with this book but so sad it is over. Seriously, it is just beautiful. I probably should just start re-reading it right now. "One Last Stop" made me laugh, cry, and continue to wish the world would be more accepting of others. I love the dynamic between August and Jane and I rooted for them the entire time. All the characters felt so real and I want to be friends with all of them. This book is everything.



*Thank you to St. Martin's Press & Netgalley for the chance to read and review this title. My opinions are my own*

I think my opinion of this novel will unfortunately (maybe fortunately) fall in the minority. I was provided an ARC by NetGalley and after reading Casey McQuiston’s prior novel, I was so excited to get into this book.

Sadly, it left me wishing for more. I found the story to be interesting, but it never really fully drew me in. As a result, I found myself picking it up and putting it down a lot. I kept bumping it in my rotation of books after a chapter or two. I wanted so badly to love this book, because Red, White, abs Royal Blue felt like such a thrill.

While the two books are unrelated, I think I was hoping for the adventure the other offered. This one is much more slow-paced. The character development is well done and honestly the characters’ need to find themselves and a home is one I found relatable.

This book deserves a chance with others. It just wasn’t for me.

Please don't look at how long this book took me to finish as a sign that it is boring, slow, or not incredible. I blame my lack of focus on the pandemic and also being WAY too excited to have received an advanced copy.

I guess it's appropriate that I finally finished this queer time traveling romance during Pride.

Casey McQuiston has become one of my favorite authors and I can't wait to read what they put out next.

Just like her first book, Red, White, and Royal Blue, One Last Stop was a masterpiece of contemporary romance that I just didn't want to put down. Jane is an enigmatic character that you can't help but fall in love with, and August is her perfect counterpart. McQuiston is such a fantastic storyteller, the story of Jane and August will resonate with you long after you have read it.

To say that my expectations for this book were high would be the understatement of the year. I, as many, completely fell in love with Casey McQuiston's first novel Red, White & Royal Blue and so I was so looking forward to reading this new work from her.

It was a good and entertaining read, but there were some things that didn't work for me.
I really enjoyed the found family trope that was used in this novel. August and her roommates were lovely and I was so interested in all their lives and throughout the whole novel I just wished for them all to be happy.
Jane and August were lovely together, but I would have liked to see some parts of their connection explored a bit more, sometimes I felt like something was missing. Maybe it was the fact that Jane was literally stuck on that train for the whole book and I swear, at one point I was just over it.

The ending was adorable and I may or may not have shed a few tears.
I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by this author.

When I started reading OLS, I thought oddball time travel rom-com. August, a newcomer to NYC, meets a tall drink of water, Jane, who saves her from a bad case of embarrassment. It doesn’t take long for August to realize that her new crush is from the past and stuck on the New York subway, seemingly forever. If nothing else, August is a problem solver and rescuing Jane becomes her focus, then her purpose. Untethered to family or career, August has been wandering from place to place trying to find something that’s always beyond reach. She’s 23 years old.

And then suddenly the book becomes something else. A love letter to love, an homage to New York City, something so special in a very specific way. The kind of book that people see themselves in and take what they need from it. A book that people will say is a classic already. And yes, for me it brought everything back in a rush of moments, magical nights with friends who felt closer than blood, sharing dollars in cramped apartments inhabited with found furniture, racing between part time jobs and classes, trying to learn to be an adult but only a few years removed from childhood. And falling in love hard the way August and Jane do, us against the world because what else is there?

This book makes me want to not read another one for awhile or maybe I don’t need to read another one. I always talk about not feeling a connection with NA books because my own 20’s are a blur. Then this book comes along and I’m there again in every madhouse way.

The writing itself is crackerjack sharp and all of the characters, main and secondary, are singularly unique and will live long in my mind. There are times too when the author just flat out spins some gorgeous phrases that left me stop. Just stop. The storylines invoke past, present, and future. They’re intricate and are brought together perfectly. Be prepared for a little heart sting but in the end, one of the best books that I’ve read in a very long time.

Early last year I read and loved Casey McQuiston’s debut Red, White, & Royal Blue like many before me. Upon its completion I knew McQuiston was an author to add to my must reads list – they were writing the kind of queer romance I was looking for in the world. Once announced I put One Last Stop on my to read list having faith in the author, if not exactly the premise.

One Last Stop is the story of August and Jane. August, a young recent NYC transplant with a complicated history, falls head over heels for a woman she keeps running into on the Q train, Jane. 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.

So much of the story is about the fear of letting someone love you, of being brave enough to think you won’t let them down. August and Jane spend time circling around the growing love between them, afraid of what it means. August uses her focus on solving the mystery of Jane to hide behind and it takes her entire found family unit to help build the confidence she needs to step out from behind that. But it happens multiple places along the narrative, Wes (honestly my favorite character by a long, long measure) is also running from how he feels about Isaiah and accepting the love being freely offered to him, exactly as and who he is.

Beyond the main romance plot focusing on Jane and August this book is about found family, and the way we create our identity by the community we make around ourselves, especially in our twenties (although I did it again in my thirties). The characters are infused with hope and joy, even when battling depression and anxiety, which I appreciate from deep within my soul. McQuiston writes like a motherfucker. Even when I was bored (which happened at about the one third mark) I was enthralled by the writing. McQuiston created a world that is fully fleshed out with a variety of people and is explicitly queer. McQuiston did their research and it shows, both in Jane’s past and August’s present.

So I really wanted to love this book, but it was so hard to stay focused on it. For me this one seemed to drag on way too long. At one point I was thinking wow, they figured it all out and it won't be long until there's some sort of heartbreaking moment between Jane and August, then I realized I was only 56% through the book. While I loved the many characters and the premise behind the story I felt like it could have been cut by at least a third of the book and been better. Most of the book is hilarious and heartwarming, it's just the pacing that got me.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an copy of this book from NetGalley on release day.

For me, this book is a solid 5 stars. I had been excited to read it for months and the fact that I got to do so before I got my physical copy in the mail was awesome. With all of the hype surrounding this book I was worried it wouldn’t hit the mark. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this was truly its own story - not just a rewritten lesbian version of RW&RB.

McQuiston wrote a phenomenal sapphic love sorry that really left me wondering if things were going to work out in the end or not. I think another thing I loves about this was the setting. I am a HUGE fan of public transportation so reading a book that had the NYC subway as a setting was just fun for me.

This book is a solid 5 and a wonderful sophomore novel.

One Last Stop is the cutest, coolest, most wholesome queer romance populated with likable characters (not an unlikable one in sight), quirky found families, New York, the train at all hours of the day, pancakes and the pancake houses that serve them, badass 70s gay history. So cute and good, and snapped me out of my reading slump for a minute.

➤ This review contains very minor spoilers in the character descriptions. Skip that portion of this review to avoid them.



When I give a contemporary romance book five stars it's because it knocked my socks off and even though I really enjoy many romances that I read I rarely feel so emotionally committed to the characters or a real deep-seated joy when they get their happily ever after as I did while reading One Last Stop. That may make it sound as if I was surprised that I loved this book so much but that isn't the case. I read an early copy of Red, White & Royal Blue and just knew this would be an author to watch. Needless to say, I wasn't at all surprised to see R,W, & RB take the world by storm. It was THAT good. McQuiston's sophomore novel is no different. I actually may have enjoyed this one a bit more if that is even possible.

There is a certain formula that this book follows that makes it a nearly perfect contemporary for me, a person who's first love is, and always will be, fantasy.

➤ Found Family
➤ Humor
➤ Character-driven
➤ Cynical MC with a dry sense of humor
➤ Contemporary with a speculative twist

This does not even begin to encapsulate all the wonderful things you'll find in this book but it is a list of things I find can sometimes make or break a book for me. One Last Stop had it all.

In the words of Casey McQuiston herself, this book is "a lesbian time travel subway rom-com". I feel as though that really says it all but just in case you don't here is a bit more about the book. August moves to NYC expecting to continue her bleak journey through life as she has been since she was a child living with her hoarder mother who seemed to care more about finding her missing brother than she was about offering a life of love and stability for her only daughter. She has no idea that calling the number at the bottom of an ad for a roommate will mean the beginning of a new life. A life she never imagined that she could have. Soon after that she's hired for a job at a pancake house and the school semester begins, meaning August will have to learn her way around the subway system, where on her first day she slips, spills coffee all over her top, and is offered a scarf by a beautiful butch girl named Jane. If she thought moving into an apartment with loving and beautifully diverse humans changed her life, it's nothing compared to what will happen now that she's met Subway Girl.

"Subway Girl is a smile lost along the tracks. She showed up, saved the day, and blinked out of existence."


One Last Stop has a solid and interesting plot that keeps the pages turning but what makes it really shine are the characters. They are lovely, wonderful, exquisite, and I want to surround myself in their warmth until the end of time. This is where one of McQuiston's many strengths lie; characters with many layers and realistic growth. That, and her ability to wield sarcasm, wit and wordplay like a boss. I don't normally make a list of characters in a review but I am today. They each deserve their own bullet point.

The Roommates:
➤ August | white | Waitress and student | Bi | In love with Jane
➤ Wes | Jewish | Architect Drop-out who now does tattoos | Gay | In love with Isaiah
➤ Niko | Latino| Psychic and Part-time Bartender | Trans | In a relationship with Myla
➤ Myla | Black | Turned from electrical engineering to being an artist | Queer | In a relationship with Niko
➤ Isaiah aka Annie Depressant | Drag Queen and accountant | Queer | In love with Wes (actually the neighbor across the hall)

The Co-Workers:
➤ Winfield aka Bomb Bumboclaat | Jamaican | Waiter and Drag Queen | In a relationship with Lucie
➤ Lucie | Czech | Manager | In a relationship with Winfield
➤ Jerry | Grumpy cook

"Come to a show sometime," Annie says. "And if you see me around and I'm a boy, you can call me Isaiah."


When August moves into the apartment above Popeye's and is surrounded by these beautiful people she finally starts to find joy in the world around her and to discover that the family you choose for yourself can be just as strong and loving, if not more so, than your blood family. Watching August bloom into the person she's meant to be and learning to love herself is a joy to behold. When she meets Jane, the hot Chinese-American Lesbian, on the subway and discovers that something about her is a little off, her cultivated detective skills from years with her mother come to the surface and she can't help but try to solve the story behind her mystery Subway Girl. Even though August resents the life she grew up in she discovers that she really enjoys finding and helping people. It also helps her to feel connected to her mom, who she still loves very much.

"Down to her fingertips, singing through her synapses, it's a love too big to be stopped, the unbearable, exquisite fullness of it."


Watching August's relationship with Jane unfold was a lovely thing. I just adored Jane so much. She brought so much to the story and every scene with her in it was better for it. I'm a straight girl and even I had a crush on Jane by the end. Her happy and confident demeanor was a perfect match to the more reserved and serious August. They complemented each other beautifully. I was praying for a happy ending for the two of them SO HARD. Also, watching Jane appreciate all of August's lovely curves and August in turn learning that her body can be and is beautiful was amazing. I feel that finding a story featuring a plus-sized character that isn't explicitly about their weight or losing it and instead is about acceptance and learning to love yourself, are so rare.

Beyond the characters and the romances this book still has much to offer. We get to see inside the drag community and the drag shows they put together, we get to learn about queer activism and punk rock in the 70's. Music plays an essential part in the story. The UpStairs Lounge fire from the 70's, in which 32 gay men were killed, is integrated into the story in a fundamental way. So is homophobia, especially concerning the families of queer people. We learn a bit about Chinese culture through both Maya's Chinese adoptive mother and Jane. Hurricane Katrina and the resulting displacement and hardships of New Orleans families is also a topic touched upon. The amount of important topics and information shared via seamless integration throughout the whole book is really quite impressive.

Even though this book was nearly perfect it did have it faults but doesn't everything? The things that I didn't care for weren't big enough for me to take any stars off or to impede my desire to shout my love of this book to the rooftops, but they're still worth mentioning. Being a fantasy lover I was pleased that their was a bit of magic woven into the story, taking a few different forms. Niko being a psychic (the real deal) was awesome, and I felt like a little magic was even imbued into Pancake Billy's House of Pancakes. But the major speculative twist is the time travel element. Unlike some people I actually quite enjoy time travel and in this story it served as a great springboard to add elements from the past into the present, especially topics like gay rights and activism, music, and family. It was interesting seeing the two time periods side by side through the eyes of Jane, who was a lesbian during a time she had to literally fight for that right, when it was illegal to be gay. And now to see the results of the freedoms and rights she fought so hard for right in front of her in present day NYC was truly inspiring. So while I loved the time travel element and all the things made possible because of it, I didn't care for the 'how' of it. When it was discovered just how our character became misplaced in time I thought it was silly and unbelievable. Obviously it's not something that could really happen but I really depend on the author to convince me it could anyway. But, like I said, it wasn't something so important to the plot that it couldn't be ignored. The second issue I had was less easily ignored and that was Myla's use of her ex-boyfriend to gain entrance into a place she needed to go in order to do something important. Besides being unlikeable and extremely ill-fitting as a companion to Myla, he really didn't do anything wrong. Myla led him on, pretended to be interested in him again, all while her roommates were listening in (including Niko) knowing it was all a lie. I didn't care for that at all. I thought leading him on was really tasteless and I wish the author could have come up with a different idea to further the plot at this point in the book. We never do see the aftermath of this scene so I guess we can just pretend everyone went back to their lives and no harm done. The simple fact remains that this book does so much right and good and necessary that its very easy to overlook these minor criticisms. I loved One Last Stop and I am so ready for whatever Casey McQuiston writes next!

Trigger Warnings: homophobia, racism, anxiety, loss of loved ones, abandonment, and displacement due to natural disaster.

Thank you so much @StMartinsPress & @NetGalley for giving me this eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 01 June 2021)

SYNOPSIS | August has recently moved to New York & as she is riding the subway she meets Jane. This chance encounter is perfect & charming & August hopes that she is going to see her again... & she does. Every time August gets on the subway, Jane is there & August begins to suspect that these encounters aren't all that coincidental & something else is going on.

WHAT I LIKED:
- the whole "true love conquers all" mentality
- a whole spectrum of representation
- how the story & characters all fitted together

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- that we only got August's POV so the romance felt quite one-sided
- Jane's dependency on August to unlock her memories (I just don't think this is the healthiest basis for a romance)
- that August's character is set up from the first few pages as not wanting to be involved in the detective life (actually kind of resenting it), yet she dives headfirst into the mystery of Jane and then chooses a career following the same path
- the chapters were long & the story didn't have a sense of urgency so this took me over a week to actually read (I normally finish a book in 2-3 days)