One Last Stop

[psocoptera]

One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston. I stayed up too late finishing this which should tell you something right there. New-adult f/f romance that with one big exception felt like it had been written exactly to my tastes, details behind cut. So, the trope where something mysterious is happening and instead of being all ~moody~ and atmospheric about it people systematically research the fuck out of it and also throw everything they can at it is one of my very favorite things. (And one I've tried writing in fic more than once.) I love seeing characters work a problem, and the protagonist here is willing to do everything from archival research to gamely trying a seance to talking to anyone who might be a potential source of information. (I get annoyed by "oh I couldn't possibly just *ask* until some dramatic point in the narrative".) I also love proxy-kissing as a romance trope - in this case "we need to recreate your past romantic history for Plot Reasons", so that was also great. The one exception I mentioned is that like Red, White, and Royal Blue (the author's previous book), there's a certain reliance on drunkenness for emotional development, which I did not enjoy. Fingers crossed that in future books McQuiston can figure out some other way to get her characters through their turning points; if this turns out to be a staple of her writing I will probably eventually get tired enough of it to stop reading her. Like, definitely not a reason I wouldn't recommend *this* book, but I don't think I would sign up for it endlessly. Although honestly if she keeps writing such irresistible tropes ("time traveling lesbians" is even better than "royalty/politician AU") I'm going to put up with annoying writing tics for a long time.