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A queer book club. This month we are discussing the sapphic horror "This Movie Doesn't End The Way We Want." Grab a coffee and chat! Did we pick a spooky read for Halloween? Yes. Join as we discuss This Movie Doesn't End the Way We Want by Hailey Piper! From Publisher's Weekly: Bram Stoker Award winner Piper (A Game in Yellow) takes on the cursed film trope in this triumphant horror outing. In 1994, Val McQueen’s younger sister, Ashley, and best friend, Collette, vanished from a movie theater during a screening of Blood-Curse of the Toad Man. Thirty years later, Val, who feels she is at fault for somehow surviving the incident, is working as a tattoo artist outside Baltimore. She’s virtually estranged from her parents, and is frequently harassed by true crime aficionados hoping to crack the unsolved mystery. Then she hears a phantom strain from the movie’s soundtrack and fears the eponymous Toad Man has returned to hunt down his escaped prey. She enlists the help of a genre-savvy former classmate, Roxie, who brings her knowledge of horror movies to bear on their investigation into the Toad Man. Together, the women discover that the film is almost entirely untraceable, only occasionally popping up in social media posts asking if anyone else remembers it. One of Piper’s greatest strengths is her ability to balance thrilling scares with subtle social commentary (there’s an anti-AI undercurrent to the revelation of the Toad Man’s origins) and impressive character building, as when she teases out her queer 40-something heroines’ complex pasts. Gripping, spooky, and strange in the best way, this is a stunner. (Sept.)

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