''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'' is a
young adult novel
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...
by Kaavya Viswanathan, written just after she graduated from high school. Its 2006 debut was highly publicized while she was enrolled at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, but the book was withdrawn after it was discovered that portions had been
plagiarized
Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thought ...
from several sources, including the works of
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
and
Meg Cabot
Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series ''Princess Diaries'', which was later adapted by W ...
. Viswanathan immediately apologized and stated that similarities were "completely unintentional and unconscious." All shelf copies of ''Opal Mehta'' were ultimately recalled and destroyed by the publisher, and Viswanathan's contract for a second book was canceled.
Book deal
While attending Bergen County Academies, Viswanathan showed her writing – including a several-hundred-page novel on Irish history she had already completed – to Katherine Cohen of
IvyWise
IvyWise is a for-profit New York-based firm of educational consultants that assists students pursuing admission to college. IvyWise counselors also work with students applying to nursery school, elementary school, high school/boarding school, and ...
, a private college admissions consultancy which Viswanathan's parents had hired to help with their daughter's application process. Through Cohen, Viswanathan was signed by the
William Morris Agency
The William Morris Agency (WMA) was a Hollywood-based talent agency. It represented some of the best known 20th-century entertainers in film, television, and music. During its 109-year tenure it came to be regarded as the "first great talent ag ...
under senior agent and William Morris partner Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and referred to
book packaging
Book packaging (or book producing) is a publishing activity in which a publishing company outsources the myriad tasks involved in putting together a book—writing, researching, editing, illustrating, and even printing—to an outside company calle ...
company 17th Street Productions (now called
Alloy Entertainment
Alloy Entertainment (formerly Daniel Weiss Associates and 17th Street Productions) is a book packaging and television production unit of Warner Bros. Television Studios. It produces books, television series, and feature films.
Alloy Entertainment ...
), a media firm responsible for packaging the ''
Gossip Girl
''Gossip Girl'' is an American teen drama television series based on the novel series of the same name written by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series, developed for television by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, ran on The CW network for six sea ...
'' and ''
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
''The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants'' is a series of five bestselling young adult novels by Ann Brashares: '' The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2001),'' ''The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (2003),'' '' Girls in Pants'' (2005), '' Fore ...
'' book series, among others. On the basis of an outline and four chapters of the novel that would become ''Opal Mehta'', Viswanathan eventually signed a two-book deal with
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...
for an advance originally reported to be $500,000. She began writing the book the summer before college, and finished it during her freshman year at
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
, while taking a full course load. ''Opal Mehta'' was published on April 4, 2006, and Viswanathan was profiled by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' on April 6, 2006.
''Opal Mehta'' centers on an academically oriented Indian-American girl who, after being told by a Harvard College admissions officer that she is not well-rounded, doggedly works to become a typical American teen: ultrasocial, shopping- and boy-driven, and carelessly hip. With ''
Publishers Weekly
''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
'' calling the book "''
Legally Blonde
''Legally Blonde'' is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic in his feature-length directorial debut, and scripted by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith from Amanda Brown's 2001 novel of the same name. It stars Reese Wit ...
'' in reverse," Viswanathan stated that her own college prep experience had inspired the novel: "I was surrounded by the stereotype of high-pressure Asian and Indian families trying to get their children into Ivy League schools." When asked about her influences in an interview given to ''
The Star-Ledger
''The Star-Ledger'' is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to '' The Jersey Journal'' of Jersey City, ''The Times'' of Trenton and the '' Staten Island Advance'', all of ...
'' of
Newark, New Jersey
Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.
Michael Pietsch later told ''The New York Times'' that Viswanathan's advance for her two-book deal was less than the previously publicized amount of $500,000, and that it was split between the author and
Alloy Entertainment
Alloy Entertainment (formerly Daniel Weiss Associates and 17th Street Productions) is a book packaging and television production unit of Warner Bros. Television Studios. It produces books, television series, and feature films.
Alloy Entertainment ...
. Alloy President
Leslie Morgenstein
Leslie Morgenstein is the president and chief executive of Alloy Entertainment. He has been credited with facilitating the adaptation of a number of book titles into television series. Examples include ''Gossip Girl'', ''The Vampire Diaries'', ''P ...
asserted that while the firm helped Viswanathan "conceptualize and plot the book," it did not help with the actual writing. Though Alloy was no longer involved once the book was sold to Little, Brown, the company shares the
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
with Viswanathan. Her agent Walsh told ''The New York Times'' that the plot and writing of ''Opal Mehta'' had been "1,000 percent" Viswanathan's. The novel was edited by Asya Muchnick at Little, Brown, and the movie rights to the book were sold to
DreamWorks SKG DreamWorks may refer to:
* DreamWorks Pictures, an American film production company of Amblin
** DreamWorks Television, an American television production company and division of the film studio
** DreamWorks Records, an American record label and ...
in February 2006.
''Opal Mehta'' garnered mixed reviews, many of which described Viswanathan as an author of "
chick lit
Chick lit is a term used to describe a type of popular fiction targeted at younger women. Widely used in the 1990s and 2000s, the term has fallen out of fashion with publishers while writers and critics have rejected its inherent sexism. Novels id ...
."
Plagiarism
Megan McCafferty
On April 23, 2006, ''
The Harvard Crimson
''The Harvard Crimson'' is the student newspaper of Harvard University and was founded in 1873. Run entirely by Harvard College undergraduates, it served for many years as the only daily newspaper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Beginning in the f ...
'' reported that several portions of ''Opal Mehta'' appeared to have been plagiarized from
Megan McCafferty
Megan Fitzmorris McCafferty (born 1973) is an American author known for ''The New York Times'' bestselling Jessica Darling series of young adult novels published between 2001 and 2009. McCafferty gained international attention in 2006 when nov ...
's first two " Jessica Darling" novels, ''Sloppy Firsts'' (2001) and ''Second Helpings'' (2003), noting over a dozen similar passages. At the time, Viswanathan's novel had reached 32nd on ''The New York Times'' hardcover fiction bestseller list. McCafferty's third Jessica Darling novel, ''Charmed Thirds'', had just been released a week after ''Opal Mehta'', and was No. 19 on the same list.
McCafferty stated that she had learned about Viswanathan's plagiarism through a fan's e-mail on April 11, 2006, the same day ''Charmed Thirds'' was released and nearly two weeks before the story went public. According to McCafferty, the email's subject read: "'Flattery or a case for litigation.' I thought, oh my God, somebody's suing me." Prompted by the email's allegations, McCafferty looked at ''Opal Mehta'' and later said that reading Viswanathan's book was like "recognizing your own child's face. My own words were just leaping out at me page after page after page." Contacted by the ''Crimson'' the day before they broke the story, McCafferty responded via email: "I'm already aware of this situation, and so is my publisher ... After reading the book in question, and finding passages, characters, and plot points in common, I do hope this can be resolved in a manner that is fair to all of the parties involved."
On April 24, 2006, Little, Brown issued a statement from Viswanathan:
"When I was in high school, I read and loved two wonderful novels by Megan McCafferty, ''Sloppy Firsts'' and ''Second Helpings'', which spoke to me in a way few other books did. Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel ... and passages in these books ... While the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words. I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to eliminate any inappropriate similarities ... I sincerely apologize to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part."
Viswanathan's agent Walsh stated, "Knowing what a fine person Kaavya is, I believe any similarities were unintentional. Teenagers tend to adopt each other's language." The day after Viswanathan's admission, Steve Ross of
Crown Publishing Group
The Crown Publishing Group is a subsidiary of Penguin Random House that publishes across several fiction and non-fiction categories. Originally founded in 1933 as a remaindered books wholesaler called Outlet Book Company, the firm expanded int ...
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
and the publisher of ''Sloppy Firsts'' and ''Second Helpings'' – issued a statement in response:
"We find both the responses of Little Brown and their author Kaavya Viswanathan deeply troubling and disingenuous. Ms. Viswanathan's claim that similarities in her phrasing were 'unconscious' or 'unintentional' is suspect. We have documented more than forty passages from Kaavya Viswanathan's recent publication ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'' that contain identical language and/or common scene or dialogue structure from Megan McCafferty's first two books, ''Sloppy Firsts'' and ''Second Helpings''. This extensive taking from Ms. McCafferty's books is nothing less than an act of literary identity theft ... Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act."
Ross said later: "We all felt it was important that we come to cCafferty'sdefense and make clear that we support our author. The notion that this was accidental stretches credibility to the breaking point." McCafferty's agent Joanna Pulcini also identified 45 "strikingly similar" passages, stating via email that "Many include identical phrasing, establish primary characters, and contain shared plot developments. ... It is understandably difficult for us to accept that Ms. Viswanathan's plagiarism was 'unintentional and unconscious,' as she has claimed." Ross added that at that time, McCafferty was "devastated" by the plagiarism, feeling "like something fundamental was taken" and "not sleeping, not eating."
In an April 26, 2006 interview with ''The New York Times'', Viswanathan suggested that some of the plagiarism may have happened because she read both of McCafferty's books multiple times and has a
photographic memory
Eidetic memory ( ; more commonly called photographic memory or total recall) is the ability to recall an image from memory with high precision—at least for a brief period of time—after seeing it only onceThe terms ''eidetic memory'' and ''pho ...
. "I remember by reading," she said. "I never take notes." She added "I've never read a novel with an Indian-American protagonist ... The plot points are reflections of my own experience. I'm an Indian-American."
Sample passages
TV interview
On April 26, 2006, Viswanathan appeared on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
's ''
The Today Show
''Today'' (also called ''The Today Show'' or informally, ''NBC News Today'') is an American news and talk morning television show that airs weekdays from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on NBC. The program debuted on January 14, 1952. It ...
'' with
Katie Couric
Katherine Anne Couric ( ; born January 7, 1957) is an American journalist and presenter. She is founder of Katie Couric Media, a multimedia news and production company. She also publishes a daily newsletter, ''Wake Up Call''. From 2013 to 2017, ...
. Viswanathan maintained her innocence, saying that any and all similarities were "completely unconscious and unintentional" and that she must have "internalized cCafferty'swords," never deliberately meaning to "take any." She maintained, "as I was writing, I genuinely believed that every single word I wrote was my own. I was so surprised and horrified when I found these similarities, when I heard about them over this weekend." Asked about the plot similarities between ''Opal Mehta'' and McCafferty's novels, Viswanathan told Couric, "I wrote about what I knew, my personal experiences. I'm an Indian-American girl who got good grades, from New Jersey, who wanted to go to an Ivy League school, and I drew upon my own experiences, upon quirks of the people around me and my culture, to create my character Opal Mehta." Viswanathan stated her intention to put an acknowledgement to McCafferty in the foreword of future printings of ''Opal Mehta'', and said of McCafferty "I hope that she can forgive me for whatever distress I've caused her." Couric then asked, "Do you think that's realistic ... given all the controversy surrounding
James Frey
James Frey (born September 12, 1969) is an American writer and businessman. His first two books, ''A Million Little Pieces'' (2003) and '' My Friend Leonard'' (2005), were bestsellers marketed as memoirs. Large parts of the stories were later f ...
and his book ... Or do you think that ... they can forgive and forget?" Viswanathan responded, "I mean, that's what I'd hope that people can do. I hope that people who know me will believe that I'm telling the truth, that I've never been anything less than honest in my entire life, that I'm so horribly sorry for this mistake. But that's all it was, a completely unintentional mistake."
Additional accusations
Salman Rushdie
Within days after the story broke, Viswanathan's name became one of the most searched terms at the
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
Technorati
Technorati was a search engine and a publisher advertising platform that served as an advertising solution for the thousands of websites in its network. Technorati launched its ad network in 2008, and at one time was one of the largest ad network ...
, and the scandal was a popular topic for commentators at web forums from
MetaFilter
MetaFilter, known as MeFi to its members, is a general-interest community weblog, founded in 1999 and based in the United States, featuring links to content that users have discovered on the web. Since 2003, it has included the popular question-a ...
to
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...
and Gawker.com. On May 1, 2006, ''The New York Times'' ran a story giving national prominence to claims on the
Sepia Mutiny
Sepia Mutiny was a blog and discussion forum, initially conceived by a group of mostly second generation Indian American students and young professionals in August 2004. The site had had an exponential growth rate and according to its FAQ, as of ...
blog that Viswanathan may have lifted text from
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...
's 1990 novel ''
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
''Haroun and the Sea of Stories'' is a 1990 children's novel by Salman Rushdie. It was Rushdie's fifth major publication and followed ''The Satanic Verses''. It is a phantasmagorical story that begins in a city so sad and ruinous that it has fo ...
''.
Sophie Kinsella
On May 2, 2006, ''The New York Times'' noted "striking similarities" between passages in ''Opal Mehta'' and those in Sophie Kinsella's 2003 "chick-lit" novel '' Can You Keep a Secret?''. Viswanathan and Little, Brown declined to comment.
Meg Cabot
On May 2, 2006, ''The Harvard Crimson'' identified passages that Viswanathan had lifted from
Meg Cabot
Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 50 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series ''Princess Diaries'', which was later adapted by W ...
's 2000 novel ''
The Princess Diaries
''The Princess Diaries'' is a series of epistolary young adult novels written by Meg Cabot, and is also the title of the first volume, published in 2000. The series revolves around Amelia 'Mia' Thermopolis, a teenager in New York who discovers ...
''. In the same article, ''Crimson'' noted that "few—if any—'chick-lit' works have ever received the level of intense scrutiny that 'Opal Mehta' is now enduring, and it is not clear whether the new allegations suggest further plagiarism, or whether Viswanathan is simply employing tropes that are widely-used in the genre."
Tanuja Desai Hidier
On April 26, 2006, Viswanathan had told ''The New York Times'', "I've never read a novel with an Indian-American protagonist ... The plot points are reflections of my own experience. I'm an Indian-American." Subsequently, on May 3, 2006, ''
The Harvard Independent
''The Harvard Independent'' is a weekly newspaper produced by undergraduate students at Harvard University. It is one of the leading hard-news media outlets on the Harvard undergraduate campus. It is the oldest weekly newspaper in Cambridge, Massa ...
'' noted three passages in ''Opal Mehta'' similar to Tanuja Desai Hidier's '' Born Confused'' (2002), another young adult novel about an Indian-American teenager in New Jersey. They cited "uncanny resemblance in imagery, sentence structure, and paragraph organization" between the two books. Hidier later stated that she had "ironically" been alerted to the allegations on the day Viswanathan was quoted in ''The New York Times''. Hidier said:
"I was stunned to find two dozen instances of lifting from ''Born Confused'' in the ''Opal Mehta'' book ... I also drew largely from autobiography to tell the story of my 17-year-old Indian American Jersey girl, Dimple Lala. And I hadn't read any books I could recall with a
South Asia
South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...
n American teen protagonist at that point (I wrote ''Born Confused'' in 2000/2001 and it launched in 2002). To the best of my knowledge ''Born Confused'' was the first book with a US female teen
desi DESI may refer to
* Desorption electrospray ionization
* Drug Efficacy Study Implementation Drug Efficacy Study Implementation (DESI) was a program begun by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1960s after the requirement (in the Kefauve ...
heroine; that was one of the reasons my publisher wanted it, and it is certainly one of the reasons I wrote it ... And so I was extremely surprised to find that the majority, though not all, of the passages in ''Opal Mehta'' taken from ''Born Confused'' are those dealing with descriptions of various aspects of South Asian culture (food, dress, locale, even memories of India, etc.) and the way that culture is expressed in America; essentially every scene of ''Opal Mehta'' that deals with any aspect of South Asian culture in more than passing detail has lifted something from ''Born Confused''. One would think that these kinds of cultural details at least could have been drawn from Ms. Viswanathan's personal experience, given our similar cultural backgrounds (and the similar cultural backgrounds and ages of our protagonists)."
An excerpt of ''Born Confused'' had appeared in '' Seventeen'' magazine in 2002. Hidier was subsequently contacted by Viswanathan's future book packager 17th Street/Alloy, but she declined their offer to collaborate with her on an "Indian-American teen story." Hidier noted in 2006 that "several parts of this excerpt – including the opening and closing – are present and strongly echoed in the ''Opal Mehta'' book." She added that ''Born Confused'' contained many specific details from her own life which had been recycled by Viswanathan:
"It was a surreal experience for me, looking at these and the other parallel parts side by side. The feeling was almost as if someone had broken into your home – and in some ways this is what literally had happened, considering so much of ''Born Confused'' is drawn from my life (and home): The alcohol cabinet in my non-drinking household in small town
was now in Opal's, the details of my family's two dinnertimes because of all the years of working late into the night by my father, too; my mother's food, from her mother's recipes, transplanted to Opal's table, her slinky black outfit too; my ecstatic and eye-opening discovery of Jackson Heights, Queens during an enthralled and emotional day there many years ago, suddenly turned to
Edison, New Jersey
Edison is a township located in Middlesex County,in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan Valley region, Edison is a commercial hub, home to Menlo Park Mall and Little India. It ...
... Did iswanathan and/or Alloythink you could just substitute one kind of Indian for another? A friend brought my attention to a couple observant bloggers who seemed to have caught on early to this grand error, commenting on how jarring it was to see a
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
/
Marathi
Marathi may refer to:
*Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India
*Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people
*Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece
See also
*
* ...
meal on a South Indian table ... and that some of the memories of India hearken back to a much older India in the ''Opal Mehta'' book (which makes sense considering the many years that separate Ms. Viswanathan and myself) – details that may have escaped a person not familiar with the culture."
Fallout and reaction
In her initial statement on April 24, 2006, Viswanathan had stated that she and the publisher would be revising the novel for future printings "to eliminate any inappropriate similarities." The same day, Michael Pietsch of Little, Brown stated, "Kaavya Viswanathan is a decent, serious, and incredibly hard-working writer and student, and I am confident that we will learn that any similarities in phrasings were unintentional." He subsequently noted that an acknowledgment to McCafferty would be added to future printings, an intention echoed by Viswanathan in her April 26, 2006 interview with Katie Couric on ''The Today Show''. Little, Brown recalled all copies of ''Opal Mehta'' on April 27, 2006. The next day, first edition copies of the novel were priced at $80 on
eBay
eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...
. On May 2, 2006, after further allegations of plagiarism had come to light, Little, Brown released a statement from Pietsch saying, "Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life'' by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract."
DreamWorks DreamWorks may refer to:
* DreamWorks Pictures, an American film production company of Amblin
** DreamWorks Television, an American television production company and division of the film studio
** DreamWorks Records, an American record label and f ...
had already halted development of the film adaptation in late April 2006. Harvard University said soon after controversy broke that it would not affect her academic standing there. She graduated with honors in 2008, and subsequently went to
Georgetown Law
The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment a ...
School, from which she graduated in 2011, the same year her parents were killed in a small plane crash in Ohio.
On May 18, 2006, McCafferty noted, "I had heard so much about her book and I had planned on reading it efore the allegations surfaced... It was sad and it was a shock that it could happen on such a big scale ... This was a big book that was getting so much attention and publicity. It is the most surreal thing that's ever happened to me." Alerted to the situation two weeks before ''The Harvard Crimson'' picked up the story, she stated that "The media broke it and I was sick to my stomach ... People don't know how hard it was to have somebody else take that from me and try and profit. As someone ho has beenwriting my entire life, to build my career, it almost made me lose faith in the publishing industry." Though Alloy Entertainment had previously stated that it helped Viswanathan conceptualize the book but did not help with the actual writing, McCafferty also raised the issue of their possible culpability in the scandal. As book packagers sometimes use their own staff or hire freelance writers to
ghostwrite
A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches, or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often h ...
manuscripts for publishers, McCafferty asked, "Was it the book packagers who really wrote the book and plagiarized my books or was it her?"
Of Viswanathan being remembered for the scandal, McCafferty also said, "I wouldn't want to be defined by a mistake made in such a public way ... I hope she can move on from this. I hope that for both of us." In addition, she noted that "Books for teens have taken a huge beating in the media" in the aftermath of the incident. "These very elitist comments about 'how all books for teens are crap; so isn't this just crap stealing from crap'. My books are not crap." McCafferty noted that she was insulted by an opinion letter published in ''The New York Times'' in which one writer wrote that teen books are "undemanding literature for undemanding readers." "There's so much good writing for teenagers now," she said. "People make across the board judgments."
The reception and fallout from the publication of the novel was discussed by Shaleena Koruth in the 2014 book ''Postliberalization Indian Novels in English: Politics of Global Reception and Awards''.
The New York Sun
''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New Yor ...
Rediff.com
Rediff.com (stylized as ''rediff.com'') is an Indian news, information, entertainment and shopping web portal. It was founded in 1996. It is headquartered in Mumbai, with offices in Bangalore, New Delhi and New York City.
, it had more than 300 e ...
The Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...