How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got A Life - Fallout and Reaction

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. 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 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.

On May 18, 2006, McCafferty noted, "I had heard so much about her book and I had planned on reading it ... 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 writing 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 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."