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A review by sarahdm
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
medium-paced
3.0
I have mixed feelings on this one. (almost like every 3 star I give lol)
I wanna start off by saying, I don't really read a lot of romance. I think I can count the romance I novels I have actually enjoyed on one hand. Usually the cliques annoy me and the plots are usually incredibly clumsy. But I picked up "One Last Stop" because it was sitting on my wife's bookshelf.
The writing is VERY millennial. I think Know Your Meme summarizes it perfectly: "Millennial Writing is a slang term that refers to a type of writing that is distinguished by an unnecessary abundance of sarcasm, meme and pop culture references and cliché quips." I think most people are either neutral on it or absolutely hate it. I'm in the neutral category, mostly because I am a millennial and this type of language doesn't really bother me. I'm not a fan of it but the overly earnest, quirky, "lol so random" of it all is just something you get used to. I imagine its a deal breaker for a lot of people and I think in another 10 years this book is going to feel really dated.
"One Last Stop" also has another weird characteristic that I feel is very millennial of it. It takes place in this weird perfect fantasy of what young queer millennials thought perfection was going to be. The main character moves to New York, instantly finds her very cool friendly queer found family roommates, is able to afford to rent a bedroom by working tables at your equally queer/ally found family co-workers, has her perfect fantasy meet-cute with her perfect hot girlfriend, every night is glitter, drag queen, and the world just farts fairy dust everywhere. This book feels like a bi-sexual manic pixie dream girl wet dream. This book feels like it was written in 2015, not 2021. Its taking place in this perfect reality and at times it makes me feel uncomfortable. But at others it makes me feel nostalgic, for a 2015 summer night standing in a DC gay bar sipping vodka cranberries and feeling like I was standing in the reality that this book subscribes to.
These two ingredient (the writing and the books weird reality) are a little bit of a positive and a negative. So with that in mind here are a few other things that I feel like pushed me from thinking "this is cringe and weird" to "this book was fun and actually not that bad."
-The romance is cute and there is actually a REAL REASON besides miscommunications that the couple can't get together.
-The supernatural/sci-fi plot is actually interesting.
-Sometimes the prose are actually fun and nice.
-I ugh actually enjoyed the "spice" scenes. Even if these degenerates fucked on a public train.
Anyway, at the end of the day, this is a light fluffy gay romance novel that takes place in a weird millennial version of reality. Its not a terrible time. A solid 3 stars.
I wanna start off by saying, I don't really read a lot of romance. I think I can count the romance I novels I have actually enjoyed on one hand. Usually the cliques annoy me and the plots are usually incredibly clumsy. But I picked up "One Last Stop" because it was sitting on my wife's bookshelf.
The writing is VERY millennial. I think Know Your Meme summarizes it perfectly: "Millennial Writing is a slang term that refers to a type of writing that is distinguished by an unnecessary abundance of sarcasm, meme and pop culture references and cliché quips." I think most people are either neutral on it or absolutely hate it. I'm in the neutral category, mostly because I am a millennial and this type of language doesn't really bother me. I'm not a fan of it but the overly earnest, quirky, "lol so random" of it all is just something you get used to. I imagine its a deal breaker for a lot of people and I think in another 10 years this book is going to feel really dated.
"One Last Stop" also has another weird characteristic that I feel is very millennial of it. It takes place in this weird perfect fantasy of what young queer millennials thought perfection was going to be. The main character moves to New York, instantly finds her very cool friendly queer found family roommates, is able to afford to rent a bedroom by working tables at your equally queer/ally found family co-workers, has her perfect fantasy meet-cute with her perfect hot girlfriend, every night is glitter, drag queen, and the world just farts fairy dust everywhere. This book feels like a bi-sexual manic pixie dream girl wet dream. This book feels like it was written in 2015, not 2021. Its taking place in this perfect reality and at times it makes me feel uncomfortable. But at others it makes me feel nostalgic, for a 2015 summer night standing in a DC gay bar sipping vodka cranberries and feeling like I was standing in the reality that this book subscribes to.
These two ingredient (the writing and the books weird reality) are a little bit of a positive and a negative. So with that in mind here are a few other things that I feel like pushed me from thinking "this is cringe and weird" to "this book was fun and actually not that bad."
-The romance is cute and there is actually a REAL REASON besides miscommunications that the couple can't get together.
-The supernatural/sci-fi plot is actually interesting.
-Sometimes the prose are actually fun and nice.
-I ugh actually enjoyed the "spice" scenes. Even if these degenerates fucked on a public train.
Anyway, at the end of the day, this is a light fluffy gay romance novel that takes place in a weird millennial version of reality. Its not a terrible time. A solid 3 stars.