One Last Stop

 One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston, 418 pages.

August is a cynic who moved to New York hoping to finish college and finally figure out what she wants to do with her life. After a cute girl saves her from coffee-based embarrassment on the subway she finds herself falling hard. The only problem is, there's a real possibility the girl is a ghost. Luckily, Jane ISN'T a ghost, just displaced in time and magically trapped on the subway. But if August wants any sort of relationship not on the train she and her very eclectic new roommates are going to have to find a way to free her. 

This book is extremely sweet. Normally I'm not a big enjoyer of time-based nonsense, but the plot here was really well done and surprisingly chill. All of the characters are also really cool, and I love them both individually and the relationships between them. Also a highlight of this book, the intense sense of community in their little corner of New York. I'm definitely recommending this one. 

Thirteen Storeys

 Thirteen Storeys by Jonathan Sims, 390 pages.

A dinner party is held in the Penthouse of Banyan Court. A dinner party that ends in the spectacularly violent and unsolved murder of billionaire Tobias Fell, owner and constructor of the building. The guests have no connections, except that they are all tied to the building itself, whether that means residents of the poor side of the building, residents of the rich side of the building, or employees. The one thing they do have in common are disturbing paranormal encounters in Banyan Court.

Jonathan Sims, writer of this book, is also the creator of The Magnus Archives podcast, and anthology of horror stories that builds into something larger and vastly interconnected. Fans of that will definitely also be fans of this, which does something very similar. I didn't find most of these stories particularly scary, but they were varied enough that I think there's at least one story in the thirteen that's likely to get to anyone. It was also a real pleasure to watch all of the stories begin to click together, and by the time I was halfway through I could definitely identify characters on the periphery that appeared in previous stories. Towards the end of the book I actually went back and flipped through the earlier stories to try to figure out some of the things that were clearly references to other things going on that I hadn't understood at the time. 

I have mixed feelings about the ending. On the one hand I appreciate it's neatness and clarity of purpose. On the other hand I had sort of been hoping for something weirder. Still, this book is very thematically compelling and felt almost like a fun puzzle to read. It's engaging, but not difficult, and I would definitely recommend it.