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A review by millennial_dandy
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.25
'One Last Stop' is a fine book, perfectly suited to the reader who just wants to squee over a perfectly cute queer love story.
That's it, that's all she wrote.
Except...
I haven't read Casey McQuiston's mega-hit 'Red, White, and Royal Blue', so I can't compare the two, but I will say that 'One Last Stop' falls into the neo-liberal trap in ways that lead me to think 'Red, White, and Royal Blue' probably isn't for me.
'One Last Stop' tells the story of two young women who find each other and fall in love on the New York Subway in the late 20-teens and overcome the obstacle of love interest, Jane, having been trapped on the subway since some time in the 1970s as a sort of not-ghost.
Honestly, I really liked this premise, especially as over the course of the narrative it's revealed just how deeply involved in the fight for queer rights Jane had been in the late 60s, early 70s -- a particularly important turning point for gay rights, Stonewall having occurred in 1969. She represents a time in recent queer history where activism was much less sanitized, much grittier and messier and necessarily more violent than what is considered 'acceptable' today.
And I sincerely thought this aspect of Jane's personal history would be important, you know, considering what all was going on and continues to be going on in the late 20-teens... considering who was president in the 20-teens...something something #MeToo....the trans community being vilified on a national stage and relegated to a culture war issue that served as a flashpoint for open hostility towards queer people that don't conform to incredibly narrow parameters of what 'acceptable' queerness looks like (or whether it can be considered acceptable at all)...
But no, no, 'One Last Stop' doesn't concern itself with any of this because it's just supposed to be a cute, time-travel love story.
And honestly, I wouldn't even pick on it for side-stepping the reality of the time period McQuiston chose to set it in (that is to say, late 2019, early 2020) in service of a fluffy plot except that the <i>way</i> she chose to do it kind of pissed me off. It would have been one thing to simply present an alternate reality in which things are fine, actually (as many queer people genuinely felt) ... in 2010.
But why, <i>why</i> go out of your way to present the queer experience in 2019 as a monolithically fluffy, happy party in which everyone is welcome and loved, in which the cast of almost unbelievably diverse characters all experience the world in exactly the same way, whether they be white, Black, Brown, trans, cis, skinny, fat, a drag queen or starving artist university student? Why do this, knowing, surely, that this is untrue, and then on top of it, have the audacity to have the present-day characters chastise Jane for pushing back on micro and macro aggressions she experiences and witnesses on the subway in 2019, and insist that 'it's not like that anymore. We can relax, we don't have to fight anymore. Everything's fine, actually.'
In 2019 things were objectively <i>not</i> fine, actually, and I find it both baffling and irresponsible of this author to participate in revisionist history in this way. Especially when a better story was <i>right there. </i> How powerful would it have been to have two queer women, one from the 1970s and one from the 20-teens, meet only for Jane of 1974 to realize how very little progress has actually been made? How marginally all of the blood, sweat, and tears of her generation actually moved the dial. Yes, that would have made for a much sadder story, but it also would have been more truthful.
And, frankly, it also would have offered the opportunity to utilize Jane's more punk-rock approach to activism as a catalyst to shake the other characters out of their little rainbow neo-liberal bubble.
<i>Ughhhhhhhhhh...</i>
Yes, this book made me angry, in case that wasn't clear.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to tell a story of queer joy. To tell a story where struggle and hardship aren't the central themes. But truly, I can only implore authors who want to tell cute, unserious, fluffy queer love stories to do better than this.
That's it, that's all she wrote.
Except...
I haven't read Casey McQuiston's mega-hit 'Red, White, and Royal Blue', so I can't compare the two, but I will say that 'One Last Stop' falls into the neo-liberal trap in ways that lead me to think 'Red, White, and Royal Blue' probably isn't for me.
'One Last Stop' tells the story of two young women who find each other and fall in love on the New York Subway in the late 20-teens and overcome the obstacle of love interest, Jane, having been trapped on the subway since some time in the 1970s as a sort of not-ghost.
Honestly, I really liked this premise, especially as over the course of the narrative it's revealed just how deeply involved in the fight for queer rights Jane had been in the late 60s, early 70s -- a particularly important turning point for gay rights, Stonewall having occurred in 1969. She represents a time in recent queer history where activism was much less sanitized, much grittier and messier and necessarily more violent than what is considered 'acceptable' today.
And I sincerely thought this aspect of Jane's personal history would be important, you know, considering what all was going on and continues to be going on in the late 20-teens... considering who was president in the 20-teens...something something #MeToo....the trans community being vilified on a national stage and relegated to a culture war issue that served as a flashpoint for open hostility towards queer people that don't conform to incredibly narrow parameters of what 'acceptable' queerness looks like (or whether it can be considered acceptable at all)...
But no, no, 'One Last Stop' doesn't concern itself with any of this because it's just supposed to be a cute, time-travel love story.
And honestly, I wouldn't even pick on it for side-stepping the reality of the time period McQuiston chose to set it in (that is to say, late 2019, early 2020) in service of a fluffy plot except that the <i>way</i> she chose to do it kind of pissed me off. It would have been one thing to simply present an alternate reality in which things are fine, actually (as many queer people genuinely felt) ... in 2010.
But why, <i>why</i> go out of your way to present the queer experience in 2019 as a monolithically fluffy, happy party in which everyone is welcome and loved, in which the cast of almost unbelievably diverse characters all experience the world in exactly the same way, whether they be white, Black, Brown, trans, cis, skinny, fat, a drag queen or starving artist university student? Why do this, knowing, surely, that this is untrue, and then on top of it, have the audacity to have the present-day characters chastise Jane for pushing back on micro and macro aggressions she experiences and witnesses on the subway in 2019, and insist that 'it's not like that anymore. We can relax, we don't have to fight anymore. Everything's fine, actually.'
In 2019 things were objectively <i>not</i> fine, actually, and I find it both baffling and irresponsible of this author to participate in revisionist history in this way. Especially when a better story was <i>right there. </i> How powerful would it have been to have two queer women, one from the 1970s and one from the 20-teens, meet only for Jane of 1974 to realize how very little progress has actually been made? How marginally all of the blood, sweat, and tears of her generation actually moved the dial. Yes, that would have made for a much sadder story, but it also would have been more truthful.
And, frankly, it also would have offered the opportunity to utilize Jane's more punk-rock approach to activism as a catalyst to shake the other characters out of their little rainbow neo-liberal bubble.
<i>Ughhhhhhhhhh...</i>
Yes, this book made me angry, in case that wasn't clear.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to tell a story of queer joy. To tell a story where struggle and hardship aren't the central themes. But truly, I can only implore authors who want to tell cute, unserious, fluffy queer love stories to do better than this.