Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 9 (click to see context) from:
And so begins ''One Last Stop'', a QueerRomance novel written by Casey [=McQuiston=] of ''Literature/RedWhiteAndRoyalBlue'' fame, published in 2021.
to:
And so begins ''One Last Stop'', a QueerRomance novel written by Casey [=McQuiston=] Creator/CaseyMcQuiston of ''Literature/RedWhiteAndRoyalBlue'' fame, published in 2021.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13 (click to see context) from:
* [[invoked]]AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August. [[spoiler: After months of August visiting and slowly recovering her memories, Jane eventually [[AvertedTrope does]] start to feel the weight of her situation and has a breakdown. August had been expecting it since Jane had until then been [[LampshadedTrope "shockingly casual about her entire existential predicament."]]]]
to:
* [[invoked]]AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August. [[spoiler: After months of August visiting and slowly recovering her memories, Jane eventually [[AvertedTrope [[SubvertedTrope does]] start to feel the weight of her situation and has a breakdown. August had been expecting it since Jane had until then been [[LampshadedTrope "shockingly casual about her entire existential predicament."]]]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Added example(s)
Deleted line(s) 48 (click to see context) :
** Niko also mentions ''Series/QuantumLeap'', which turns out to be quite apposite: judging by the news snippets and missed connections, Jane has travelled through time standing up for underdogs and making life better for people however she can. And her memory is "swiss-cheesed" in a similar way.
Changed line(s) 54 (click to see context) from:
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite movie is ''Film/SayAnything''.
to:
** Niko also mentions ''Series/QuantumLeap'', which turns out to be quite apposite: judging by the news snippets and missed connections, Jane has travelled through time standing up for underdogs and making life better for people however she can. And the her memory is "swiss-cheesed" in a similar way.
** The hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite movie is ''Film/SayAnything''.
** The hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite movie is ''Film/SayAnything''.
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In Chapter 2, when August is awestruck at seeing Jane for the second time:
-->''"August absolutely, definitely, is not picturing Subway Girl just as delighted and fond across the table on a third date. And she's certainly not the type of person to sit on a train with someone whose nae she doesn't know and imagine her assembling an Ikea bed frame. Everything is completely under control."''
-->''"August absolutely, definitely, is not picturing Subway Girl just as delighted and fond across the table on a third date. And she's certainly not the type of person to sit on a train with someone whose nae she doesn't know and imagine her assembling an Ikea bed frame. Everything is completely under control."''
Changed line(s) 63 (click to see context) from:
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Discussed. Jane ''did'' feel this, and that her family were better off without her, but just before she disappeared in 1977 had decided to go back to see them.[[spoiler: The book ends with her leaving with August to find them, with an open mind about what may happen.]]
to:
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Discussed. Jane ''did'' feel this, and that her family were better off without her, but just before she disappeared in 1977 had decided to go back to see them. [[spoiler: The book ends with her leaving with August to find them, with an open mind about what may happen.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Added page image.
Added DiffLines:
[[quoteright:269:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/one_last_stop.jpg]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 20 (click to see context) from:
--> ''Jane'': No, it's cute! You're such a nerd. It's endearing!
to:
--> ''Jane'': '''Jane''': No, it's cute! You're such a nerd. It's endearing!
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 11 (click to see context) from:
* [[invoked]]AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August.
to:
* [[invoked]]AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August. [[spoiler: After months of August visiting and slowly recovering her memories, Jane eventually [[AvertedTrope does]] start to feel the weight of her situation and has a breakdown. August had been expecting it since Jane had until then been [[LampshadedTrope "shockingly casual about her entire existential predicament."]]]]
Added DiffLines:
* EndearinglyDorky: Jane assures August that she finds her nerdier tendencies cute when August is mortified after Jane mentions that she knows about [[spoiler: August's private "sex notebook", which she updates after every time they sleep together with whatever she finds Jane likes during sex.]]
--> ''Jane'': No, it's cute! You're such a nerd. It's endearing!
--> ''Jane'': No, it's cute! You're such a nerd. It's endearing!
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 3,4 (click to see context) from:
August Landry leads an unhappy life. She's recently moved into a run-down [[BigApplesauce New York City]] apartment with a couple of oddball roommates, juggling waiting tables at an old diner with what little of her school life that she bothers to tend to. She's determined to leave her checkered past behind and withdraw into mawkish cynicism, [[TheBigRottenApple and the Big Apple seems like just the place to do it]]. However, there ''is'' one significant bright spot in her new life: Jane Su, a cool, confident girl who she meets on the Q Train on her subway commute, [[LoveAtFirstSight with whom August is instantly smitten]].
to:
August Landry leads an unhappy life. She's recently moved into a run-down [[BigApplesauce New York City]] apartment with a couple of oddball roommates, juggling waiting tables at an old diner GreasySpoon with what little of her school life that she bothers to tend to. She's determined to leave her checkered past behind and withdraw into mawkish cynicism, [[TheBigRottenApple and the Big Apple seems like just the place to do it]]. However, there ''is'' one significant bright spot in her new life: Jane Su, a cool, confident girl who she meets on the Q Train on her subway commute, [[LoveAtFirstSight with whom August is instantly smitten]].
Changed line(s) 8 (click to see context) from:
to:
----
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 33 (click to see context) from:
* ParentsAsPeople: August has a strained relationship with her mother because Suzette's obsession with solving her missing brother's case lead her to neglect August's wellbeing her entire life. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:August learns her mother kept them in PerpetualPoverty to keep funding the investigation, while simultaneously keeping August from seeing her grandparents funding her school tuition because of how they treated her uncle. August is so furious she was denied a normal life and familial connection that she cuts her mother off for several months.]]
to:
* ParentsAsPeople: August has a strained relationship with her mother because Suzette's obsession with solving her missing brother's case lead her to neglect August's wellbeing her entire life. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:August learns her mother kept them in PerpetualPoverty to keep funding the investigation, while simultaneously keeping August from seeing her grandparents who wanted to meet her and were funding her school tuition because of how they treated her uncle. August is so furious she was denied a normal life and familial connection that she cuts her mother off for several months.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 33 (click to see context) from:
* ParentsAsPeople: August has a strained relationship with her mother because Suzette's obsession with solving her missing brother's case lead her to neglect August's wellbeing her entire life. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:August learns her mother kept them in PerpetualPoverty to keep funding the investigation, while simultaneously keeping August from seeing her grandparents when they wanted to meet her because of how they treated her uncle. August is so furious she was denied a normal life and familial connection that she cuts her mother off for several months.]]
to:
* ParentsAsPeople: August has a strained relationship with her mother because Suzette's obsession with solving her missing brother's case lead her to neglect August's wellbeing her entire life. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:August learns her mother kept them in PerpetualPoverty to keep funding the investigation, while simultaneously keeping August from seeing her grandparents when they wanted to meet funding her school tuition because of how they treated her uncle. August is so furious she was denied a normal life and familial connection that she cuts her mother off for several months.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* ParentsAsPeople: August has a strained relationship with her mother because Suzette's obsession with solving her missing brother's case lead her to neglect August's wellbeing her entire life. It comes to a head when [[spoiler:August learns her mother kept them in PerpetualPoverty to keep funding the investigation, while simultaneously keeping August from seeing her grandparents when they wanted to meet her because of how they treated her uncle. August is so furious she was denied a normal life and familial connection that she cuts her mother off for several months.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 49 (click to see context) from:
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite move is ''Film/SayAnything''.
to:
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite move movie is ''Film/SayAnything''.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Deleted line(s) 45 (click to see context) :
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite move is ''Film/SayAnything''.
Added DiffLines:
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite move is ''Film/SayAnything''.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 37 (click to see context) from:
* SaveTheOrphanage: Pancake Billy's is under threat from raised rents, imperilling several characters' jobs - and also the one "unchanged" place since Jane's time-slip. The friends organise a fundraiser: [[spoiler: which provides a cover for their "time heist" to try to rescue Jane from the Q.]]
to:
* SaveTheOrphanage: SavingTheOrphanage: Pancake Billy's is under threat from raised rents, imperilling several characters' jobs - and also the one "unchanged" place since Jane's time-slip. The friends organise a fundraiser: [[spoiler: which provides a cover for their "time heist" to try to rescue Jane from the Q.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* SaveTheOrphanage: Pancake Billy's is under threat from raised rents, imperilling several characters' jobs - and also the one "unchanged" place since Jane's time-slip. The friends organise a fundraiser: [[spoiler: which provides a cover for their "time heist" to try to rescue Jane from the Q.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13 (click to see context) from:
* ChekovsGun: Two big ones - the early hints that August's grandparents have money, and the envelope of papers that Suzette sends her about Augie in New York, which she barely looks at.
to:
* ChekovsGun: ChekhovsGun: Two big ones - the early hints that August's grandparents have money, and the envelope of papers that Suzette sends her about Augie in New York, which she barely looks at.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* ChekovsGun: Two big ones - the early hints that August's grandparents have money, and the envelope of papers that Suzette sends her about Augie in New York, which she barely looks at.
Added DiffLines:
* YouCantGoHomeAgain: Discussed. Jane ''did'' feel this, and that her family were better off without her, but just before she disappeared in 1977 had decided to go back to see them.[[spoiler: The book ends with her leaving with August to find them, with an open mind about what may happen.]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* GenderBlenderName: August is called after her uncle; Niko could also be a boy or girl's name.
* GenerationXerox: August looks just like her mom, and they share a talent for the unglamorous side of detective work: Suzette may not have found Uncle Augie in all these years, but August mentions she's helped clear up three unrelated cold cases. [[spoiler: August eventually decides that her life's work is finding lost people, too.]]
* GenerationXerox: August looks just like her mom, and they share a talent for the unglamorous side of detective work: Suzette may not have found Uncle Augie in all these years, but August mentions she's helped clear up three unrelated cold cases. [[spoiler: August eventually decides that her life's work is finding lost people, too.]]
Added DiffLines:
** Niko also mentions ''Series/QuantumLeap'', which turns out to be quite apposite: judging by the news snippets and missed connections, Jane has travelled through time standing up for underdogs and making life better for people however she can. And her memory is "swiss-cheesed" in a similar way.
Added DiffLines:
** And the hint that cynical August is a romantic at heart? Her favourite move is ''Film/SayAnything''.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 9 (click to see context) from:
!!Tropes found in One Last Stop include:
to:
!!Tropes found in One ''One Last Stop Stop'' include:
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 19 (click to see context) from:
* FishOutOfTemporalWater:
to:
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Jane was originally from 1976, but was ferried through time on the Q Train to the year 2021.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 13 (click to see context) from:
* ClusterFBomb: The word "fuck" is used at least once every tenth sentence.
to:
* ClusterFBomb: The word "fuck" [=McQuiston=]'s narration is used at least riven with swear words, sometimes as often as once every tenth sentence.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 11 (click to see context) from:
* AngstWhatAngst: August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August.
to:
* AngstWhatAngst: [[invoked]]AngstWhatAngst: In-universe, August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
->''"That's the way it happens on the subway--you lock eyes with someone, you imagine a life from one stop to the next, and you go back to your day as if the person you loved in between doesn't exist anywhere but on that train."''
August Landry leads an unhappy life. She's recently moved into a run-down [[BigApplesauce New York City]] apartment with a couple of oddball roommates, juggling waiting tables at an old diner with what little of her school life that she bothers to tend to. She's determined to leave her checkered past behind and withdraw into mawkish cynicism, [[TheBigRottenApple and the Big Apple seems like just the place to do it]]. However, there ''is'' one significant bright spot in her new life: Jane Su, a cool, confident girl who she meets on the Q Train on her subway commute, [[LoveAtFirstSight with whom August is instantly smitten]].
But there's this peculiar trait about Jane that August discovers by chance: she's [[FishOutOfTemporalWater time-displaced]] from TheSeventies, bound to the subway and unable to get off of it, [[TheAgeless not having aged at all for the past forty-five years]], and [[IdentityAmnesia remembering nothing of her former life]]. It's up to August and her gaggle of new friends to figure out what's wrong with Jane, how she got into this pickle, and, if possible, free her from this curse.
And so begins ''One Last Stop'', a QueerRomance novel written by Casey [=McQuiston=] of ''Literature/RedWhiteAndRoyalBlue'' fame, published in 2021.
!!Tropes found in One Last Stop include:
* TheAgeless: Jane hasn't aged a day since she was first bound to the Q Train.
* AngstWhatAngst: August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August.
* TheBigRottenApple: {{Discussed|Trope}} early on. August moved to the Big Apple because she thought that its grimy streets, worn-down buildings, and tough, world-weary inhabitants would complement her cautious, cynical outlook on life, like no other city had before. It did, for a while, until she met genuinely friendly people like her roommates, her neighbors, her coworkers, and Jane.
* ClusterFBomb: The word "fuck" is used at least once every tenth sentence.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: After August discovers that her schooling is almost finished, she panics about having little in the way of practical skills with which she could line up and hold down a job.
* DisappearedDad: August never had a father in her family, and mentions that her mother merely had an unknown sperm donor instead.
* TheDrifter: [[spoiler:Pre-Q Jane spent her years hitchhiking across the USA, and left one city for another whenever staying there became more trouble than it was worth:]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Jane:''' But everywhere I went, someone hated me. And then there were other girls who were like me, who... I don't know, they were stronger than me, or more patient. They'd stay and build bridges. Or at least try. I wasn't a builder. I wasn't a leader. I was a fighter. I cooked people dinner. I took them to the hospital. I stitched them up. But I only stayed long enough to take the good, and I always left when the bad got bad.]]
* {{Epigraph}}: Chapters begin with various brief logs relating to Jane, often either a newspaper blurb or a classified advertisement from various people who've crossed paths with her. However, most of them are dated decades ago despite featuring descriptions of Jane that're no different from her in the present day, and are thus the first things to clue the reader in to the fact that Jane is far from an ordinary human. After that point, though, they're merely anecdotes of Jane's life before and during her stay on the Q Train.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater:
* FreudianSlip: In Chapter 2, when August meets Jane for the second time on the Q Train:
--> August's brain tries "hi" and her mouth goes for "morning" and what comes out is, "Horny."
* HappilyAdopted: Myla is Ghanian by birth but was adopted by a Chinese couple, and mentions that her mother once [[LethalChef tried]] to cook [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waakye a Ghanian dish]] to help her little girl feel closer to her heritage.
* IdentityAmnesia: Jane can't remember anything about her life before being bound to the Q Train, and ''only knows that her name is Jane Su'' because it was printed on the inside of her jacket. It's up to August to try to jog her memory of her life with an assortment of items, such as a specific bagel/coffee order.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: August's mother has been on a frantic search for her missing older brother for all of her daughter's life, until August decided that she didn't want her life to be defined by a wild goose chase after somebody who she's never known. This makes her cross about missing out on [[MundaneLuxury the simple joy of a close-knit family life]], like [[HappilyAdopted Myla's family]].
* InvisibleToNormals: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. When Myla boards the Q Train by herself, Jane never appears to her, but she meets Jane later when August is in tow.
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Jane has little difficulty adjusting to smartphone use after August bequeaths her her burner phone. However, she still bookends her texts with proper greetings and sign-offs, like a handwritten letter, something that August doesn't have the heart to dissuade her from doing.
* LimitedWardrobe: Jane only ever wears her leather jacket, white tee, jeans, and red canvas sneakers.
* MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: [[spoiler:In Chapter 9, August and Jane have sex on the Q Train in the dead of night.]]
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: [[spoiler:Jane's real name is Biyu, and she got her better-known name from a burger bar called Drunk Jane's that she briefly worked at, until the name Jane stuck.]]
* PunnyName: Annie Depressant and Sarah Tonin, two drag queens who live near August and company.
* ReallyGetsAround: As August helps Jane rediscover her memories, it becomes apparent that the latter had kissed over a dozen girls back in the '70s.
* TheReveal: August first realizes that something's amiss with Jane when she sees the girl from the Q Train in a photograph at Billy's, ''dated to 1976.''
* TheRunaway: [[spoiler:A very young Jane was convinced to run away from home, and the family restaurant job that awaited her, after being enthralled by a seventh-rate punk band that played at the restaurant. While there was little good that could have been said about them, they showed her that there was more to the world than her stifling restaurant life.]]
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: Initially, August frantically tries to downplay her attraction to Jane, ''even before, '''during,''' and after TheBigDamnKiss,'' trying to justify it to herself as just another thing to jog Jane's memories of her former life.
* SherlockScan: Owing to her mother dragging her along on the search for her brother before she could walk, August has a knack for analyzing people and figuring out minute details about them from only a few visual cues.
* ShipperOnDeck: Myla constantly prods August about her attraction to Jane, [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend which August initially brushes off]].
* ShoutOut:
** When August notes to her roommates the absurdity of [[IdentityAmnesia Jane's predicament]], one of them name-drops ''Film/FiftyFirstDates'', prompting August to claim that SheIsNotMyGirlfriend.
** On first meeting Niko, August remarks that he looks like the frontman for an Music/ArcticMonkeys cover band.
** One of the things to jog Jane's memory of her former life is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chi-Lites The Chi-Lites]]' "Oh, Girl".
** Myla mentions ''Literature/AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'' when discussing Jane's being unmoored from the '70s.
** Myla's room is stocked with ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' merchandise.
** When Jane socks August in the nose after the latter snuck up on her, August compares her to [[Franchise/TheBourneSeries Jason Bourne]], only for Jane to say that [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure she doesn't know who he is]].
** In Chapter 1, August remarks to herself how Billy's has an indescribable "New Yorkness"-type quality to it, comparing it to Monk's Café from ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''.
* TakeThat:
** From Chapter 3, when August spills her life story to Myla:
--->'''Myla:''' Anyway, [your mother having commandeered your young life] sucks. I'm your mom now. The rules are, no [[Creator/QuentinTarantino Tarantino]] movies and bedtime is never.
** From Chapter 7, when Wes' friend Isaiah helps move some furniture of August's to her apartment:
--->'''August:''' Hey, do you mind if we put the radio on?\\
'''Isaiah:''' God, please. If I have to listen to Music/BonIver for another block, I'm gonna drive into a telephone pole.
* WeirdnessCensor: In Chapter 6, when August tries to determine if there's any station that Jane can get off at without magically teleporting back onto the train, none of the other subway-goers seem to bat an eye at Jane rematerializing in front of them.
----
August Landry leads an unhappy life. She's recently moved into a run-down [[BigApplesauce New York City]] apartment with a couple of oddball roommates, juggling waiting tables at an old diner with what little of her school life that she bothers to tend to. She's determined to leave her checkered past behind and withdraw into mawkish cynicism, [[TheBigRottenApple and the Big Apple seems like just the place to do it]]. However, there ''is'' one significant bright spot in her new life: Jane Su, a cool, confident girl who she meets on the Q Train on her subway commute, [[LoveAtFirstSight with whom August is instantly smitten]].
But there's this peculiar trait about Jane that August discovers by chance: she's [[FishOutOfTemporalWater time-displaced]] from TheSeventies, bound to the subway and unable to get off of it, [[TheAgeless not having aged at all for the past forty-five years]], and [[IdentityAmnesia remembering nothing of her former life]]. It's up to August and her gaggle of new friends to figure out what's wrong with Jane, how she got into this pickle, and, if possible, free her from this curse.
And so begins ''One Last Stop'', a QueerRomance novel written by Casey [=McQuiston=] of ''Literature/RedWhiteAndRoyalBlue'' fame, published in 2021.
!!Tropes found in One Last Stop include:
* TheAgeless: Jane hasn't aged a day since she was first bound to the Q Train.
* AngstWhatAngst: August notes that Jane had adjusted well to being flung forty-five years out of her time, and bound to the Q Train indefinitely. However, Jane confesses to her that she didn't even notice that anything was wrong until she met August.
* TheBigRottenApple: {{Discussed|Trope}} early on. August moved to the Big Apple because she thought that its grimy streets, worn-down buildings, and tough, world-weary inhabitants would complement her cautious, cynical outlook on life, like no other city had before. It did, for a while, until she met genuinely friendly people like her roommates, her neighbors, her coworkers, and Jane.
* ClusterFBomb: The word "fuck" is used at least once every tenth sentence.
* DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife: After August discovers that her schooling is almost finished, she panics about having little in the way of practical skills with which she could line up and hold down a job.
* DisappearedDad: August never had a father in her family, and mentions that her mother merely had an unknown sperm donor instead.
* TheDrifter: [[spoiler:Pre-Q Jane spent her years hitchhiking across the USA, and left one city for another whenever staying there became more trouble than it was worth:]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Jane:''' But everywhere I went, someone hated me. And then there were other girls who were like me, who... I don't know, they were stronger than me, or more patient. They'd stay and build bridges. Or at least try. I wasn't a builder. I wasn't a leader. I was a fighter. I cooked people dinner. I took them to the hospital. I stitched them up. But I only stayed long enough to take the good, and I always left when the bad got bad.]]
* {{Epigraph}}: Chapters begin with various brief logs relating to Jane, often either a newspaper blurb or a classified advertisement from various people who've crossed paths with her. However, most of them are dated decades ago despite featuring descriptions of Jane that're no different from her in the present day, and are thus the first things to clue the reader in to the fact that Jane is far from an ordinary human. After that point, though, they're merely anecdotes of Jane's life before and during her stay on the Q Train.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater:
* FreudianSlip: In Chapter 2, when August meets Jane for the second time on the Q Train:
--> August's brain tries "hi" and her mouth goes for "morning" and what comes out is, "Horny."
* HappilyAdopted: Myla is Ghanian by birth but was adopted by a Chinese couple, and mentions that her mother once [[LethalChef tried]] to cook [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waakye a Ghanian dish]] to help her little girl feel closer to her heritage.
* IdentityAmnesia: Jane can't remember anything about her life before being bound to the Q Train, and ''only knows that her name is Jane Su'' because it was printed on the inside of her jacket. It's up to August to try to jog her memory of her life with an assortment of items, such as a specific bagel/coffee order.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: August's mother has been on a frantic search for her missing older brother for all of her daughter's life, until August decided that she didn't want her life to be defined by a wild goose chase after somebody who she's never known. This makes her cross about missing out on [[MundaneLuxury the simple joy of a close-knit family life]], like [[HappilyAdopted Myla's family]].
* InvisibleToNormals: {{Downplayed|Trope}}. When Myla boards the Q Train by herself, Jane never appears to her, but she meets Jane later when August is in tow.
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Jane has little difficulty adjusting to smartphone use after August bequeaths her her burner phone. However, she still bookends her texts with proper greetings and sign-offs, like a handwritten letter, something that August doesn't have the heart to dissuade her from doing.
* LimitedWardrobe: Jane only ever wears her leather jacket, white tee, jeans, and red canvas sneakers.
* MakingLoveInAllTheWrongPlaces: [[spoiler:In Chapter 9, August and Jane have sex on the Q Train in the dead of night.]]
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: [[spoiler:Jane's real name is Biyu, and she got her better-known name from a burger bar called Drunk Jane's that she briefly worked at, until the name Jane stuck.]]
* PunnyName: Annie Depressant and Sarah Tonin, two drag queens who live near August and company.
* ReallyGetsAround: As August helps Jane rediscover her memories, it becomes apparent that the latter had kissed over a dozen girls back in the '70s.
* TheReveal: August first realizes that something's amiss with Jane when she sees the girl from the Q Train in a photograph at Billy's, ''dated to 1976.''
* TheRunaway: [[spoiler:A very young Jane was convinced to run away from home, and the family restaurant job that awaited her, after being enthralled by a seventh-rate punk band that played at the restaurant. While there was little good that could have been said about them, they showed her that there was more to the world than her stifling restaurant life.]]
* SheIsNotMyGirlfriend: Initially, August frantically tries to downplay her attraction to Jane, ''even before, '''during,''' and after TheBigDamnKiss,'' trying to justify it to herself as just another thing to jog Jane's memories of her former life.
* SherlockScan: Owing to her mother dragging her along on the search for her brother before she could walk, August has a knack for analyzing people and figuring out minute details about them from only a few visual cues.
* ShipperOnDeck: Myla constantly prods August about her attraction to Jane, [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend which August initially brushes off]].
* ShoutOut:
** When August notes to her roommates the absurdity of [[IdentityAmnesia Jane's predicament]], one of them name-drops ''Film/FiftyFirstDates'', prompting August to claim that SheIsNotMyGirlfriend.
** On first meeting Niko, August remarks that he looks like the frontman for an Music/ArcticMonkeys cover band.
** One of the things to jog Jane's memory of her former life is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chi-Lites The Chi-Lites]]' "Oh, Girl".
** Myla mentions ''Literature/AConnecticutYankeeInKingArthursCourt'' when discussing Jane's being unmoored from the '70s.
** Myla's room is stocked with ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' merchandise.
** When Jane socks August in the nose after the latter snuck up on her, August compares her to [[Franchise/TheBourneSeries Jason Bourne]], only for Jane to say that [[PopCulturalOsmosisFailure she doesn't know who he is]].
** In Chapter 1, August remarks to herself how Billy's has an indescribable "New Yorkness"-type quality to it, comparing it to Monk's Café from ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}''.
* TakeThat:
** From Chapter 3, when August spills her life story to Myla:
--->'''Myla:''' Anyway, [your mother having commandeered your young life] sucks. I'm your mom now. The rules are, no [[Creator/QuentinTarantino Tarantino]] movies and bedtime is never.
** From Chapter 7, when Wes' friend Isaiah helps move some furniture of August's to her apartment:
--->'''August:''' Hey, do you mind if we put the radio on?\\
'''Isaiah:''' God, please. If I have to listen to Music/BonIver for another block, I'm gonna drive into a telephone pole.
* WeirdnessCensor: In Chapter 6, when August tries to determine if there's any station that Jane can get off at without magically teleporting back onto the train, none of the other subway-goers seem to bat an eye at Jane rematerializing in front of them.
----
