Is second life like really like the metaverse??

As most of you I was really surprised about this book. At the beginning it's was easy so seperate the reality and the metaverse, but the more pages I turned the more confused I became. But most of all I began to think about how much second life is similar to the metaverse that the book is about. I've never tried one of these secondlife-games I'm not even sure that I can refer to it as a game, but if any of you have any experience with it, I would like to hear about it. I've been playing a lot of Sims and to me it sounds like Sims with multiple players..
I can't remember who wrote it but I can only agree with that person about the fact that this Hero guy sounds like he has some problems in his real life and therefore have to live his life through the metaverse a thing that I think people who uses their computer way to much has in commen.
When I went to elementry school the girls that spend to most time in front of the computer was also the girls that had the biggest problems at home...