Leaving the Station / Jake Maia Arlow / Book Review

LEAVING THE STATION

The slowest possible way to get from New York to Seattle is via passenger train. Which is why Zoe's settled on this means for getting home for Thanksgiving break. Her life is falling apart around her. College isn't going well. And she kinda, sorta doesn't want to talk about the fact that she's not coming back to finish out the semester. Not until she has to.

With only spotty reception for the next few days, Zoe's happy to unplug and ignore the questions of her parents, of her not-so-close college friends, and of her brand-new ex-boyfriend (and the fact that she has an ex-boyfriend is the biggest shock of all).

But for now, Zoe can forget all of that. And meeting Oakley makes that easy. Oakley is the exact opposite of Zoe. She's cool. She's hot. She's self-assured. And she's wickedly smart. They hit it off right away. But Zoe isn't the only one looking to outrun her problems on this train.

THOUGHTS

I absolutely adored this book. I adored that this is a book about gender, about sexuality, about wrestling with new and different identities, and I adored that this isn't a coming out story. It's a coming-of-age story instead. My only qualm is that some of these questions feel bigger than the questions most YA readers are asking. They're not too big for a YA reader, but they're maybe, just slightly more interesting conversations to have when you're older than this market demographic.

PROS

All Alone	I really like the way this book looks at loneliness. It's a difficult read and a very real one. This book wrestles with branching out, with reaching for something new because you need to, because where you came from was slowly killing you. And it wrestles with the impulse to go back to that place, that time, that community that was suffocating you because at least back then you had someone, unlike now where you have no one. This is a book about trying something because you need to try something and having that something just... not work. Which is hard and sad and lonely but very real.
Figuring It Out	I loved that this isn't a book about having the answers. It's a book about asking the questions. So many queer YA books are about coming out and all the pressures that entails (which is fair enough), so it is always nice to read a different type of LGBTQ+ experience. This is a story about figuring it out, even if that figuring-out is messy. It's about asking what gender means and what sexuality means and questioning what we thought we knew about ourselves. It's about trying new things when we get to new places and realizing what does or doesn't work (or at least asking if something could be right). And I love that.
Just For the Ride	Even though some of the questions and the conversations this book revolves around are quite heavy, it has an overall magical quality to it because this slow-moving cross-country train just feels... cozy. It's a whirlwind romance of a coming-of-age story with just a touch of holiday feeling (though the messy kind of holiday feeling), and I loved that. On this train, as the chilly countryside rushes by, it's the perfect time and place to talk and to clash and to work out angsty problems while falling kinda, sorta head-over-heels in love.

CONS

I mentioned above that I think some of the conversations in this book go beyond the scope of general YA interests, and I will reiterate that here. But I'll also mention that, even in other ways, this book is definitely on the upper side of the YA market when it comes to age-appropriate content. We're figuring things out. We're experimenting, and some of that experimenting goes beyond what younger readers will be ready or interested in reading about. It's exploration in the vein of Looking For Alaska: definitely appropriate for teens but probably only for those ready to ask those kinds of questions and have those types of experiences themselves. For the twelve or thirteen-year-old kid, this book might prove a bit too mature.	Mature Content
These lovebirds are constantly on each other's nerves, pushing buttons and bringing up touchy subjects. This adds a lot of tension to the plot, more than my particular preference. I don't think it was bad. It was great, in fact, for character growth, and it honestly felt pretty realistic, all things considered. But it was a bit too much for my own personal tastes.	On Her Nerves
This book requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. I loved it. Don't get me wrong. But if you're looking for something realistic, you aren't getting it here. Nobody's really falling in love on a three-day train journey. It's fun to think about, sure. That's part of the magic of this romance. But you're suspending your disbelief for this one, and if that's hard for you, well, this love story might not be your cup of tea.	Mundane

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
10/10

Fans of John Green's Looking For Alaska will like the difficult questions and growing pains that come with this book. Those who adored the whirlwind holiday romance in Edward Underhill's This Day Changes Everything will love falling in love on this train.

Details Publisher: Storytide Date: August 19, 2025 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.