What do you think about "REAL" stories? (Just asking)?

[Eibhlinn]

It's the first time I've ever heard of anybody having a problem with reality in a book.
Though I'll say, there is a difference between using real place names and saying your character lives in a real street and goes to a real restaurant and dropping pop culture references. I have no issue whatsoever with the first. The second one is something you have to be really cautious with.
In the House of Night series - which I don't recommend to anybody - for example, there are inordinate amounts of pop culture references that will not mean anything to anybody in a few years. Zoey reads Charlaine Harris' books and listens to songs by the cast of Glee. These are useless references that add nothing to the story and will make the books feel really outdated in just a few years. However, the use of the Rubik's cube or the show Bonanza in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness is there to give the flavour of the time. We know this is the '80s because of these references.
So whenever you make pop culture references, it should be because you're trying to set the time period and say something about it. For example if you're going to mention Twitter, Facebook, and reference to your character texting on his iphone, it should be because you're establishing that in the 2010s, people's way of communicating is now going through mainly through technology and perhaps not so much face-to-face anymore. If however you're just doing it because "hey, see my MC's cool, she's on Twitter", then yeah, you're doing it wrong.