The real warning here isn't about books corrupting us—it's about our own permeability, the terrifying fact that we're not finished versions of ourselves. Clare suggests we should approach reading with the same caution a surgeon applies before opening a patient: respect for what might spill out and remake us. When you finish a novel that shifts your politics, or reread a poem that suddenly applies to your divorce, you understand that books aren't mirrors reflecting a fixed self back at you—they're architects quietly rearranging the rooms inside your mind. The care she's advocating for is less about protective distance and more about deliberate choice: knowing which words you invite to change you, and why.