First the James Frey shocker, and now it's a 19 year old Harvard sophomore. Kaavya Viswanathan signed a $500,000 book deal at 17 years old, and wrote How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. The publisher has permanently withdrew her books from the shelves because of alligations of plagiarism. Reports from various online sources site multiple sources of plagiarism. Apparently, she plagiarised from author Megan McCafferty,Sophie Kinsella among others.
She may also be asked to returned the $500,000 advanced received to write the two books.
With the recent news, people who own the first book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life are rushing to Ebay, where it is listed for as high as $57.18! I wish I bought several copies before the scandal.
What made an obviously bright young Ivy League student to do this? Sometimes, I have a lot of mixed thoughts in my head from various books I've read, shows I've seen, so when I do have an idea, is it actually original? Apparently, Kaavya Viswanathan's plagiarisms are pretty obvious, sometimes only a few words are changed. This makes me think how many other books are amalgamations of other books, shows, and other people's ideas. What I have written here combines what I read from other sites, so am I to site every sentence? When does an original idea truly original?
