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A review by sara_berlin
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
New York takes from her, sometimes. But she takes too. She takes its muggy air in fistfuls, and she packs it into the cracks in her heart.
Jane is spun sugar. A switchblade girl with a cotton-candy heart.
I am in love with how Casey McQuiston writes, their settings and characters are absolutely stunning. Their writing is very lyrical and expressive, almost poetic. I swear I was better at expressing my emotions over text with my friends after reading this book. It’s kind of a younger-sounding Sally Rooney type of style.
I also like the little documents at the start of every chapter, although considering the chapters are very long we don’t get many of them. I’m a sucker for any kind of mixed media in books. The dialogue is very realistic, which I appreciate. Like, characters stutter and talk over each other all the time, and there’s plenty of silences, some awkward, some not.
Although it usually kind of annoys me when the book takes forever to get past what is described in the synopsis (it's also annoying if the synopsis passes in like the first 10 pages, cough The Girls I've Been cough), this time it didn't really bother me. We had enough other stuff going on that the main plotline of "oh she's stuck on the subway" taking a while wasn't annoying.
Also, I read Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo recently and this reminded me a bit of that. Asian-American lesbian from San Francisco, except this time 1970s instead of 1950s. Time for me to read a queer historical fiction book set during the HIV/AIDS crisis and I’ll be set.
One of the only two things that bothered me was the timeline. 2020 is mentioned as happening in present time, yet there is no mentions of masks, lockdowns, people getting COVID or any type of impacts on the characters lives at all. It was just a footnote in the story, which for a book that’s about a 20 something finding her place in the world was really weird.
The other thing is that it felt like the kind of book that should be written in first person, but nope, third person limited. Not even omniscient, which would make more sense. I guess it kind of contributed to the slight magical atmosphere of the story? I’m not really sure what the point was.
But I was able to suspend my disbelief for the timeline and I eventually got used to the weird narration style.
I also really like the time lapse parts of stories, and this one had that as well. It’s like everything I love in one book. Found family, New York, queer people, magical realism, those special moments that give you that indescribable feeling of joy and belonging, the satisfaction from doing something you’re good at… just a few of the specific aspects of the book that I adored. Overall, it's a wonderful sapphic romance book/coming of age book and I loved it.
Jane is spun sugar. A switchblade girl with a cotton-candy heart.
I am in love with how Casey McQuiston writes, their settings and characters are absolutely stunning. Their writing is very lyrical and expressive, almost poetic. I swear I was better at expressing my emotions over text with my friends after reading this book. It’s kind of a younger-sounding Sally Rooney type of style.
I also like the little documents at the start of every chapter, although considering the chapters are very long we don’t get many of them. I’m a sucker for any kind of mixed media in books. The dialogue is very realistic, which I appreciate. Like, characters stutter and talk over each other all the time, and there’s plenty of silences, some awkward, some not.
Although it usually kind of annoys me when the book takes forever to get past what is described in the synopsis (it's also annoying if the synopsis passes in like the first 10 pages, cough The Girls I've Been cough), this time it didn't really bother me. We had enough other stuff going on that the main plotline of "oh she's stuck on the subway" taking a while wasn't annoying.
Also, I read Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo recently and this reminded me a bit of that. Asian-American lesbian from San Francisco, except this time 1970s instead of 1950s. Time for me to read a queer historical fiction book set during the HIV/AIDS crisis and I’ll be set.
One of the only two things that bothered me was the timeline. 2020 is mentioned as happening in present time, yet there is no mentions of masks, lockdowns, people getting COVID or any type of impacts on the characters lives at all. It was just a footnote in the story, which for a book that’s about a 20 something finding her place in the world was really weird.
The other thing is that it felt like the kind of book that should be written in first person, but nope, third person limited. Not even omniscient, which would make more sense. I guess it kind of contributed to the slight magical atmosphere of the story? I’m not really sure what the point was.
But I was able to suspend my disbelief for the timeline and I eventually got used to the weird narration style.
I also really like the time lapse parts of stories, and this one had that as well. It’s like everything I love in one book. Found family, New York, queer people, magical realism, those special moments that give you that indescribable feeling of joy and belonging, the satisfaction from doing something you’re good at… just a few of the specific aspects of the book that I adored. Overall, it's a wonderful sapphic romance book/coming of age book and I loved it.