Read a Book Today: Books (Rachel’s Version)

Well, welcome to my 30-for-DT. 

Genuinely, I feel like I should not be writing this. I think I’m still that sophomore from March 2020. I can see myself leaving my GE in Taper Hall, looking at my phone as I walk down Trousdale and receiving that email. I’m Han Solo in carbonite. I should build upon that joke, but I’m tired after all the unprecedented events. Although I see them all the time in history, this one feels defining.

I will always wish that I had been at University Park more instead of my “campus” where I spent Zoom University. I wish I hadn’t been a transfer with only one semester at USC when the pandemic hit. I wish I hadn’t been a commuter weighing just how long of a drive the social engagement was worth. I wish I could have narrowly dodged more skateboards and surreptitiously cried in more corridors. I wish I had taken more pictures. I’ve had my best and worst moments here (and online). I’ve embarrassed myself, bit my tongue a thousand times and wished to fall through the floor — at this point, it’s a special skill on my resume. 

I could wax poetic to you about my time at USC — my abbreviated time and my extraordinary time here. The times that I fell in love with campus all over again at golden hour. But that isn’t what this column is about, right? It’s about books and honestly, it landed me here.

I remember the Passover Seder when I was nine-years-old. My aunt handed me a book as a “just because” gift when I walked in the door. I finished it in the hour before the seder began, and from then on, my reputation for reading quickly became apparent. Everyone soon knew that I was in love with stories in every form.

When I was young, I loved the “Rainbow Magic” series, the “All of a Kind Family” series, but it was the “Junie B. Jones” series that made me the reader I am today. And, of course, as I mentioned in my first column of this semester, Percy Jackson & Co. is responsible for at least half of why I am so annoying about books. 

As I grew older, I began to worship the young adult section — the books known for “I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.” No one wanted to accompany me to the bookstore, and they still don’t, but I had a $10 bill in my pocket, and I needed to make an informed decision about paperbacks! My local indie routinely forked over backlist books which led to, among others, a collection of series about teenagers who, upon falling asleep, end up in Disney World as holograms to fight Disney villains. I loved “The Raven Boys.” My reading speed was once again a hallmark, and I suppose most people would prefer to leave high school with being prom king, but “That Girl That Read a Lot of Books Very Quickly” is perfectly fine too.

I wanted to spotlight “The Opposite of Loneliness,” which I discovered as a sophomore in high school. I had picked it out by chance through Goodreads, obviously my social media of choice. It was a series of works by Marina Keegan who died in an accident just days after she graduated. After her death, her graduation speech went viral. The way she described her college experience with so much love made me realize I wanted to be — and write — like her. She’s right on every single count: The notion that it is too late to do anything is comical. The idea of losing the circles we make during our university years is terrifying. The beauty of everyone being on the same team, behind on the same reading, in the same city. The late-night texts of “Wanna come with? Please?” The tenderness of the small moments that you hold onto. The walks from here to there and back again.

For me, USC was never a slam dunk. I never believed it could happen and still believe the acceptance letter was a dream. I’d see people on tours taking photos and think, “Wait, wait, wait, I go here. They think it’s something worth taking a photo of. This is my school.”

It is the pride of taking a photo with Tommy Trojan as a prospective student and realizing that you will pass it each day and not take the same photo until graduation. It makes me tongue-twisted and flustered. It’s why I’ve been digging my heels in the sand this semester and fighting waves of premature nostalgia. The entire thing was everything and nothing I’d hoped for, in this emotional gray space. 

I started at USC terrified, and now I’m leaving with a bit more joy. A little bit more in love with Los Angeles, and a little bit more in awe of those I’ve met. It’s strange the sort of beauty you’re able to find in the unprecedented events. 

I’m lucky to have been a history major and to “hear the people sing” — those never heard and the long dead. I’ll miss spending class time going on long soliloquies about my history obsession du jour and wondering what happened in the missing 18 and a half minutes of the Watergate tapes. I’ll miss working on this column, though it was hardly work. For me, USC was all the literary genres wrapped up into one. So, if you saw me trip over my own feet on Trousdale or at Taper, SOS and CPA at least once a week throughout my time on campus — no, you didn’t. USC, thank you for having me. Fight on forever — and please … read a book today.

Rachel Bernstein is a senior writing about books and arts and entertainment news. Her column “Read a Book Today” ran every other Friday.