This could be from any age really. I remember reading lots of books like Harry Potter as a 4th grader to seem smart to the teachers looking at me but I didn’t understand any of it. When the big YA dystopian boom was happening, I read tons of terrible YA dystopias to seem cool but many of them frustrated me.
I’ve never read a book to appear smarter than I was, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised this is a thing people do.
It’s a good thing people judge books by their cover, eh?