Okay, I haven’t seen this movie yet, but I read the book when I was a teenager over a decade ago. And yes, it was great, but can we please, for the intellectual sanctity of womanhood, move on from apotheosizing this young adult genre? Are there any women in this town who read real literature written for adults? I’ve read all these kiddy books for the sake of maintaining conversation beyond hollow exchanges of “That’s a cute skirt,” or “Where do you get your hair done?” and I always come out on Team Jacob or Team Gale, left in the lonely dust of yearning for something real. And dudes, here’s where you come in: Is there a single one of you in Portland with enough cowboy in your bones to back up that beard on your face? Fuck it, I’m in the wrong place--which way to the personal ads? I want to post pictures of my pet to go on a date with a guy who tries to teach me how to play pool even though he doesn’t know the first thing about barroom etiquette and he holds his cue stick with an open bridge.

@Katie This is the most interesting comment I've ever gotten in response to something I've written for the merc. Thank you, and I hope you get a nice date.

-elinor jones

Ms. Jones, it's always a relief to be interesting. The date was already bad. I figured he might catch on when I began reading The Mercury but instead he continued buying us rounds of scotch so I stayed on until they closed the bar. I hope you took no offense to my comment; your review swam atop all that laphroaig the whole walk home, sloshing in my brain. I was still holding onto...what? Anger? Disappointment? Really I just didn't want to cry yet. And buoyed on my sea of booze was something familiar, something to grab at. So I opened my laptop, and, well... Thank you for being gracious about my emotionally displaced, scatter-gun approach to venting. It was a well written review and I now look forward to the movie.

-Katie