Trivia / How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life

• Creator Backlash: Unsurprisingly, Kaavya Viswanathan isn't fond of the book and has expressed a wish to put it all behind her and not be solely defined by it, especially considering that the first thing that often comes up when you Google Viswanathan's name is the plagiarism debacle.
• Creator Killer: A rare example of an author's debut novel killing their career just as it was beginning; it serves as a testament to the publishing industry's dim view of plagiarism. The novel was initially selling well, with Kaavya Viswanathan already contracted to write a follow-up, but it soon became embroiled in scandal when it was exposed for being riddled with plagiarism. Publisher Little, Brown cancelled Viswanathan's contract and recalled all the physical copies of the book they could. Viswanathan hasn't written anything else since, though while her writing career appears finished, her law career was left unscathed.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The book was removed from publication and all shelf copies were destroyed, so it can be difficult to find copies nowadays; a few readers have mentioned that their local public libraries still have a copy or two, used copies can be found on Amazon and some internet archives have also uploaded the book.
• Lying Creator: Hoo boy, where to begin? Kaavya Viswanathan initially claimed that no other works inspired her when it came to writing the book; after the plagiarism first came to light though, she admitted she had read and enjoyed Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings (the first two Jessica Darling books), and that she may have unwittingly incorporated sections of these novels into her own book. She did state that Opal Mehta was still distinct because the main protagonist was a young Indian-American woman and that she'd never read a YA book with an Indian protagonist, although this too came into question due to similarities between Opal Mehta and Born Confused, which also centers around an Indian-American teenage girl; Born Confused's author, Tanuja Desai Hidier, thought that the similarities were too precise to be a coincidence (especially because Hidier included many personal details from her own life in her story). The sheer number of similarities between Opal Mehta and the works of numerous other authors also made many people - including the publisher - skeptical that it was truly unintentional as Viswanathan claimed. There were even rumours that Viswanathan may not even have written the book herself and it was simply published under her name to help with her admission to Harvard, though this has never been substantiated.
• One-Book Author: To this day, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life appears to be the only novel Viswanathan has written and published (though at the time she stated she'd written other stories besides Opal Mehta). After all the hullabaloo over the plagiarism accusations, it's unlikely other publishers would be willing to work with her and the scandal may also have put Viswanathan off from trying to write anything else.
• What Could Have Been:
  • There were originally plans for a sequel to be published, as well as a deal for a movie adaptation to be made by DreamWorks, but after the plagiarism revelations, both the sequel and movie were cancelled.
  • After the initial news story regarding the novel copying sections from Megan McCafferty's works came out, Viswanathan's publisher and agent initially stood by her claims it was an accident and announced they would release revised editions of the novel to remove the plagiarized bits. However, after more and more reports came out about the book having apparently copied from numerous other books, too, the publishers instead washed their hands of the situation, recalling the book altogether and dropping Viswanathan.

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