Susan Juby cuts to the chase

... As much as I stand behind my post, I think she's also right:

"...it may have been a mistake to use books as a guide to life. This is because books misled me about a few things. Thanks to warm-hearted stories like Anne of Green Gables, I expected to encounter kindred spirits on every corner, as well as gruff but caring old people... Books hoodwinked me into believing a set of lies about what was and was not important in life. In books...having a good vocabulary was crucially important. When I went to school it turned out to be a serious liability. In books a lack of concern about clothes and personal appearance showed solid character. In school such unconcern spelled social disaster. In books knowing a lot about a lot of things...was admirable and likely to be rewarded. At school it pretty much guaranteed that everyone would think you were a show-off and a bore and would shun you. In books people were mostly nice, and the ones who weren't nice were easy to spot. In school villains were everywhere and they were well disguised."

(Excerpted from this).