History YMMV / HowOpalMehtaGotKissedGotWildAndGotALife

* MisBlamed: In the years since the plagiarism scandal broke, there's been speculation and debate on whether Kaavya Viswanathan was truly the only person at fault for how the book turned out, or if she got thrown under the bus as the author and thus the most visible person involved. As discussed [[https://podglomerate.com/shows/missing-pages/kaavya-viswanathan-the-untold-story/ here]] and [[https://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/plag/5240451.0002.005/--chick-lits-re-packaging-of-plagiarism-the-debate-over-chick?rgn=main;view=fulltext here]], Viswanathan was hired to write a young adult novel by book packaging company Alloy, who come up with concepts for books then hire authors to write the stories, while retaining legal ownership of the idea and a degree of creative control; ''Opal Mehta'' was no different (author Creator/LJSmith notoriously got burnt by this in regards to ''Literature/TheVampireDiaries'', with Alloy firing her from the series and hiring a ghostwriter when they disagreed with Smith on the plot direction of future books). Apparently, no one at Alloy picked up on any plagiarism or helped Viswanathan with editing before ''Opal Mehta'' was shipped off for publishing (by all accounts they don't have much to do with the books they produce once the manuscript is turned in), while at the time Viswanathan was a teenager who had no experience with publishing and had only written a single manuscript unrelated to ''Opal Mehta'' (which was rejected by her agent because it was believed it wouldn't sell well). Even Megan [=MacCafferty=] (one of the authors whose works were plagiarised from) publicly questioned how much culpability was shared with Alloy.

* DancingBear: A lot of promotion for the book centered around it having been written by a 19 year-old Harvard student and starring an Indian-American protagonist (which was rare - if not unheard of - in YA literature at the time). Several early reviews pointed out that, while not terribly-written, there wasn't much else to make it stand out plot-wise. It then quickly became better known for stealing content from other books; it even turned out that some parts were plagiarized from ''Born Confused'', a 2002 novel about an Indian-American girl torn between these two cultures that was also marketed as one of the first YA American novels with a South Asian protagonist.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: This book is an ''extreme'' example. It initially sold well until readers started to notice many similarities between the plot and prose to previously published books, including Megan [=McCafferty=]'s ''Literature/JessicaDarling'' series, Tanuja Desai Hidier's ''Born Confused'', Creator/MegCabot's ''Literature/ThePrincessDiaries'', Sophie Kinsella's ''Can You Keep a Secret?'' and even a Creator/SalmanRushdie book (''Literature/HarounAndTheSeaOfStories''). The author admitted she had read some of these books as a teen and may have been subconsciously influenced by them. However, upon analysis it was found that whole sentences or even entire passages were identical or near-identical to other authors' works, which to many people - including ''Opal Mehta'' publisher Little, Brown and Co. - looked too suspicious to be a mere coincidence. Readers and critics rapidly turned on the book, resulting it being recalled by the publisher and all remaining shelf copies destroyed. Although not mentioned much during the initial controversy, several readers have also noted ''Opal Mehta'' bears a lot of similarities to ''Film/MeanGirls'' and ''Film/ShesAllThat'' (with one Goodreads review even describing it as "a less good ''Mean Girls''").

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: The novel had already generated quite a bit of publicity at the time of its 2006 release, due to the author being 19 and having written it during her freshman year at Harvard. However, things completely blew up four weeks later when the ''Harvard Crimson'' reported that over 40 passages in the book had been plagiarized from two other novels by Megan [=McCafferty=] (which was only the tip of the iceberg). Sales of the book skyrocketed, but the whole thing ended just a few days later when Viswanathan's publisher recalled the book from stores. After ''that'' happened, people were selling it on [=eBay=] for $80! (the controversy couldn't have hurt [=McCafferty=], either, as she had just released a third book at almost the same time the first two were suddenly back in the spotlight). Over a decade later, some people who heard of the book via the plagiarism scandal will still try to get their hands on it to see what all the fuss was about.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Several reviews have noted that the book is clearly rooted in the early-to-mid 2000s, due to the frequent mentioning of shows like ''Series/TheOC'' (ran from 2003 - 2007) and ''[[Creator/{{MTV}} Total Request Live]]'' (ran from 1998 - 2008 until the 2017 revival), characters listening to then-popular musicians like Music/FiftyCent, the emphasis on parties, fashion and dating as the epitome of teen life, and more. On a less pleasant note, it's been pointed out that some of the casual remarks and attitudes of the teen cast come off as sexist, racist and/or classist these days (e.g. Opal looks down on immigrants working blue collar jobs and some of her remarks about women come off as misogynistic and SlutShaming) but were considered more 'acceptable' or a source of 'edgy' humor in the early 2000s. In a more meta sense, most of the books that ''Opal Mehta'' 'borrowed' from were also published in the early-to-mid 2000s, so it contains a lot of tropes, archetypes, humor and so on that were popular in YA literature at that time.

* DancingBear: A lot of promotion for the book centered around it having been written by a 19 year-old Harvard student and starring an Indian-American protagonist (which was rare - if not unheard of - in YA literature at the time). Several early reviews pointed out that, while not terribly-written, there wasn't much else to make it stand out plot-wise. It then quickly became better known for stealing content from other books; it even turned out that some parts were plagiarized from ''Born Confused'', a 2003 novel about an Indian-American girl torn between these two cultures that was also marketed as one of the first YA American novels with a South Asian protagonist.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: This book is an ''extreme'' example. It initially sold well until readers started to notice many similarities between the plot and prose to previously published books, including Megan [=McCafferty=]'s ''Literature/JessicaDarling'' series, Tanuja Desai Hidier's ''Born Confused'', Creator/MegCabot's ''Literature/ThePrincessDiaries'', Sophie Kinsella's ''Can You Keep a Secret?'' and even a Creator/SalmanRushdie book. The author admitted she had read some of these books as a teen and may have been subconsciously influenced by them. However, upon analysis it was found that whole sentences or even entire passages were identical or near-identical to other authors' works, which to many people - including ''Opal Mehta'' publisher Little, Brown and Co. - looked too suspicious to be a mere coincidence. Readers and critics rapidly turned on the book, resulting it being recalled by the publisher and all remaining shelf copies destroyed. Although not mentioned much during the initial controversy, several readers have also noted ''Opal Mehta'' bears a lot of similarities to ''Film/MeanGirls'' and ''Film/ShesAllThat'' (with one Goodreads review even describing it as "a less good ''Mean Girls''").

* SoOkayItsAverage: Removed from the plagiarism accusations, some readers have found that the novel is formulaic and silly in places, but is otherwise a fun light read, and that it's a shame both the book and author became embroiled in scandal because the plot on its own merits isn't all that bad.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Several reviews have noted that the book is clearly rooted in the early-to-mid 2000s, due to the frequent mentioning of shows like ''Series/TheOC'' (ran from 2003 - 2007) and ''Total Request Live'' (ran from 1998 - 2008 until the 2017 revival), characters listening to then-popular musicians like Music/FiftyCent, the emphasis on parties, fashion and dating as the epitome of teen life, and more. On a less pleasant note, it's been pointed out that some of the casual remarks and attitudes of the teen cast come off as sexist, racist and/or classist these days (e.g. Opal looks down on immigrants working blue collar jobs and some of her remarks about women come off as misogynistic and SlutShaming) but were considered more 'acceptable' or a source of 'edgy' humor in the early 2000s.

* NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity: The novel had already generated quite a bit of publicity at the time of its 2006 release, due to the author being 19 and having written it during her freshman year at Harvard. However, things completely blew up four weeks later when the ''Harvard Crimson'' reported that over 40 passages in the book had been plagiarized from two other novels by Megan [=McCafferty=] (which was only the tip of the iceberg). Sales of the book skyrocketed, but the whole thing ended just a few days later when Viswanathan's publisher recalled the book from stores. After ''that'' happened, people were selling it on [=eBay=] for $80! (the controversy couldn't have hurt [=McCafferty=], either, as she had just released a third book at almost the same time the first two were suddenly back in the spotlight). Over a decade later, some people who heard of the book via the plagiarism scandal will still try to get their hands on it to see what all the fuss was about.

* TheyCopiedItsoItSucks: This book is an ''extreme'' example. It initially sold well until readers started to notice many similarities between the plot and prose to previously published books, including the Megan [=McCafferty=]'s ''Literature/JessicaDarling'' series, Tanuja Desai Hidier's ''Born Confused'', Creator/MegCabot's ''Literature/ThePrincessDiaries'', Sophie Kinsella's ''Can You Keep a Secret?'' and even a Creator/SalmanRushdie book. The author admitted she had read some of these books as a teen and may have been subconsciously influenced by them. However, upon analysis it was found that whole sentences or even entire passages were identical or near-identical to other authors' works, which to many people - including ''Opal Mehta'' publisher Little, Brown and Co. - looked too suspicious to be a mere coincidence. Readers and critics rapidly turned on the book, resulting it being recalled by the publisher and all remaining shelf copies destroyed. Although not mentioned much during the initial controversy, several readers have also noted ''Opal Mehta'' bears a lot of similarities to ''Film/MeanGirls'' and ''Film/ShesAllThat'' (with one Goodreads review even describing it as "a less good ''Mean Girls''").