One Last Stop: Is It Worth The Hype?

YES, YES, A MILLION TIMES YES.

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Name: One Last Stop

Author: Casey McQuiston

Published: 2021

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.

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One Last Stop came out during my exam week (I’d had it on preorder for nearly a year) and I read it immediately. Was I really tired from staying up all night reading? Possibly. But was it worth it? Hell yes.

This is everything I’ve ever wanted from a book. You’ve got LGBTQ+ history, 70’s punk rockers, a sapphic relationship, flipping time travel wrapped up in the most beautiful, whimsical writing. I will never be able to do it justice. Every word Casey McQuiston wrote was beautifully crafted and so cinematically constructed that you have the most vivid picture in your head. McQuiston adds all these tiny details to characters that you never see again and they build up a massive picture of all these different people. One of my favourite parts of the book was Jane retelling her memories; there was this one quote about a boy in bright red shorts watching the rain from his balcony that I just can’t forget.

It’s hazy but she remembers Jane telling her about drag shows she used to go to in the ’70s, the balls, how queens would go hungry for weeks to buy gowns, the shimmering nightclubs that sometimes felt like the only safe places.

She lets Jane’s memories transpose over here, now, like double exposed film, two different generations of messy, loud, brave and scared and brave again people stomping their feet and waving hands with bitten nails, all the things they share and all the things they don’t, the things she has that people like Jane smashed windows and spat blood for.

– I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK

Then the characters! One Last Stop is the very definition of the found family trope and I’m running out of ways to say that I love them all. There was so many different kinds of LGBTQ+ representation and Niko is the omnipotent psychic I never knew I needed in my life. I’m so excited for all the fan art! August is so interesting; I like that she doesn’t take all these crazy things in her stride but also the entire book isn’t just her freaking out. There are multiple well developed side plots, it wasn’t just all about Jane. Although I would have been more than fine with that too.

Sometimes there are no other words: I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT. One Last Stop is funny and sexy and heartwarming – and clever! So, so clever. The mystery kept me hooked throughout the entire thing, enough to feel satisfied when I work something out a little before the characters but also having no idea how it will end. Like I said before, I just can’t do it justice. If you enjoy mysteries and rom-coms and the most poetry you can squeeze out of a train, read this now! You won’t regret it.