![]() ![]() It cured my pandemic loneliness, and filled me with bubbling laughter and heart squeezing happiness. This book really describes the feeling of being afraid to let people know you, but also the feeling of relief when you decide to be your unapologetic self and are embraced by a community. With subway parties, drag shows, and a band of hilarious and sweet queer friends I would love to be adopted by, One Last Stop manages to provide laughs, queer history and love, a heist, time travel, and a feeling of belonging that is impossible to get from most other books. There’s just one problem: Jane is from a different time. A girl who inspires her to let people in again and cracks her wide open. Until she meets Jane, an impossibly perfect girl on the subway who she's inexplicably drawn to. It would've been interesting to read Jane's perspective about this evolution, as someone who witnessed the 40+ years' worth of changes, was still fighting for LGBTQ rights when she disappeared and is now seeing a more inclusive society and experiencing a bit of a culture shock.For her whole life, August has never let herself grow attached to any place or anyone, preferring to study people rather than actually getting to know them. Queer relationships of every form are normalized and healthy, and the characters are fully-realized people who are beautifully diverse, but also much more than their identities. In Last Stop, coming out has already happened and acceptance is unequivocal. In that book, coming out to the world and the fear about the lack of acceptance are a large part of the story. ![]() The conversations around identity in particular demonstrate that - to a certain degree - Last Stop is not just an evolution of McQuiston's exquisite craft, but an extension of her debut Red, White and Royal Blue. ![]() Last Stop is by and large a humorous romance, replete with syrupy moments of love and ride-or-die friendships, but the complex themes of familial relationships, gentrification, and identity temper the levity. This conundrum serves as the biggest yet most unique conflict of the novel: How do we fight to keep someone with us when their existence is outside the rules of space-time continuum? Trying to figure out how McQuiston will resolve such a seemingly impossible task is only half the fun the other half is spending time in the company of a found family of memorable characters whose laugh-until-you-cry quality banter (and seances) will make readers feel right at home. How do we fight to keep someone with us when their existence is outside the rules of space-time continuum? Trying to figure out how McQuiston will resolve such a seemingly impossible task is only half the fun. But the city itself is just as much of a dazzling participant in the late night parties, steamy rendezvous, and initiatives August and her friends set up to prevent the gentrification of that beloved pancake diner. August loves saying that the Q represents "a time, a place, and a person" because of the way it shapes her life and that of so many others without anyone realizing. Let's just say that getting stuck on a completely empty train surrounded by the twinkling Brooklyn skyline is anything but an inconvenience, especially when it becomes the perfect backdrop for date night. which may or may not involve some real-life reenactments as August tries to trigger Jane's memories. Before they know it, every train ride evolves into an escapade to Jane's edgy and adventurous past, lush with delicious dumplings, parties, cross-country trips, punk rock music, and romantic relationships. Jane has no idea why or how she got stuck, and no recollection of her past, but she seems to be on every Q train August is on.īook Reviews 'You Had Me At Hola' Had Us Right From The Beginningīut when August sees a sign that says the Q will be closed at the end of summer, she is determined to bring back Jane's memories and figure out a way to free her. Sparks fly from the moment August locks eyes with Jane, by which I mean actual electrical impulses caused by the chemistry that August's friend Myla surmises has tethered them to each other. When August moves to New York for college, the last thing she expects is to become best friends with her roommates, find a community with the drag queen crowd in NYC, become a waitress at a pancake diner despite zero experience, and fall for Jane, a time-traveling, leather jacket-wearing, kissable punk rocker from the 1970s who's stuck on the Q train for all of eternity. In her sophomore romance One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston has managed to do what no one else has: Make the New York City subway sexy and magical - and make readers feel so five minutes ago for not having our own public transit meet-cutes.Įven during rush hour, with cars brimming with jostling bodies, McQuiston's characters seem to find defining moments of intimacy on the Q line. ![]()
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