Students Turn To Childhood Favorites To Find Comfort in 2020

Pictured above: the cookbooks of Chloe MC ‘24

By Cat Barbour ’24
Staff Writer

Rereading a childhood favorite or otherwise beloved book creates a sense of comfort and enjoyment that only nostalgia can provide. Friends and familiar places wait within the pages, along with the memories of your life when you first read each page. As Cornelia Funke’s “Inkheart,” a young adult fantasy novel, puts it, “If you take a book with you on a journey, … an odd thing happens: The book begins collecting your memories … Yes, books are like flypaper — memories cling to the printed page better than anything else.” 

With the arrival of the holiday season during a global pandemic, a tense political climate and finals around the corner, it’s no surprise students are reaching for their comfort books. The Mount Holyoke News spoke with current students to see which books they revisit during tough times

Overwhelmingly, students mentioned the “Harry Potter” series by J. K. Rowling, which chronicles boy wizard Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Darcy Coleman ’24 read the series in elementary and middle school. 

“I was obsessed with ‘Harry Potter,’” Coleman said. “[The books] help bring me back to happy times during my childhood. I struggle a lot with anxiety and books give me an escape, as well as a way for me to relate to the characters and feel motivated and hopeful about my own challenges.”

While Coleman reaches for “Harry Potter” for general comfort, Grace Lara ’24 seeks out “Fangirl” by Rainbow Rowell for a “reliable sick day read.” “Fangirl” follows the story of Cath, who, in a meta twist, is a huge fan of Rowell’s own “Simon Snow” series. Cath and her twin bonded over “Simon Snow,” but upon entering college, the books became more symbolic of their separation than their closeness. Now, out of her comfort zone and without her sister, Cath must navigate school by herself. 

This past spring, Phoebe Murtagh ’21 sought out a book to help deal with her sadness following the closing of Mount Holyoke’s campus, finding solace in “Tell the Wolves I’m Home” by Carol Rifka Brunt. The story follows June as she comes to terms with the death of her uncle, the only person who understood her and makes an unexpected new acquaintance at the funeral who might just be everything she needs to heal. Murtagh calls the book “well written and rich, centered around love and grief and heartbreak and life.”

When Chloe MC ’24 wants the satisfaction of finishing a novel in one sitting, she returns to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The book tells the story of Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect after Ford saves Arthur from being destroyed along with the Earth. The pair proceed to hitchhike the galaxy together, which happens to be Ford’s area of expertise. It is the first novel in the series. MC enjoys the “goofy little sci-fi series,” explaining, “The humor is what draws me in. [The characters] make everything [that sounds] so absurd [sound] perfectly normal.” 

MC also shared the story of her family’s cookbook. “Food is very important; basically every event or holiday is centered around food and the kitchen,” MC explained. “For my parents’ first Christmas [as a married couple], my grandma on my dad’s side typed up and photocopied a cookbook’s worth of recipes and put them in a binder. Most of them belonged to my great-grandmother Kitty Cat.” 

“We treat it as the holy grail,” she continued. “It’s where we go to first if we want a recipe for something. … It’s been around longer than I have. It’s comforting because it’s the go-to comfort food book. Some of the recipes are clearly dated (like soda salad) but some of it is gold.” 

While not everyone has access to something from their family’s history to find comfort in, bakers may have a part of MC’s family cookbook hiding in their kitchen. “Fun fact,” MC said, “it’s my great grandma’s recipe for pound cake on the back of the Swan’s Down flour box, the whipping cream pound cake.”

There’s a reason that many books bring nostalgia and contentment to those who read them. Research by a professor at the University of California found that people enjoy stories more when they know the ending. An example provided in the study reads, “If you’re driving up Highway 1 through Big Sur, and you know the road really well, you can now peek around and admire the view.” Rereading leads to a greater appreciation of the writing and gives readers a sense of comfort because they already know the plot. 

“The Secret History” makes strides in budding dark academia genre

BY BEATA GARRETT ’20

When the public discovered that Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch” was greenlit for a film adaptation, critics were skeptical whether her book could transfer to the screen. The Guardian called the Pulitzerwinning novel her “most divisive book” and noted that Warner Brothers sought the rights to her debut novel, “The Secret History,” before gaining rights to “The Goldfinch.”

“The Secret History” received praise when released and remains popular with “dark academia” fans, who credit the book with creating the genre. Since the release of “The Secret History,” other novels similar to Tartt’s have begun to define the genre. While the definition of dark academia is still murky, the online community seeks to understand it.

Dark academia novels draw from the genres of satire and tragedy. They also often focus on the humanities and liberal arts, which motivate the passions of the main characters, who resort to violence. Dark academia focuses heavily on gothic aesthetics and its authors write in elaborate prose.

These elements differentiate it from the “campus novel,” which takes place at college, and the “campus murder mystery novel.” Because of these requirements, novels like V.E. Schwab’s “Vicious” and Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” series would not qualify as dark academia; “Vicious” is only briefly set in college and “The Magicians” lacks a focus on gothic aesthetics.

Study Breaks Magazine explores the allure of Dark Academia geared toward traditional collegeaged students, writing that, “[i]nstead of viewing college with the ... dread that college students usually do, they have delved into their studies with a renewed, finer appreciation for things as simple as the aesthetic of pens, notebook pages and cursive writing ... lying on their desks.”

Dark academia is full of narrative possibilities but has been criticized for being overwhelmingly white and male-centered. Books in the genre do feature gay romances, but there are few happy endings to go around.

“The genre has a problem with the way it treats its gay characters, the women, and the absence of people of color entirely,” Ju Eun Choi ’20 said. “Novels in Dark Academia also romanticize college life without criticizing the institutions and other students who make it so difficult for marginalized students struggling with things like mental health and racism.”

Dark academia is a relatively new genre, but has great potential to tap into the more taboo aspects of academia. To get started, fans typically recommend Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” and M.L. Rio’s “If We Were Villains,” a book about actors studying Shakespeare who must confront each other and themselves after one of them is killed.