Student's Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy

A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty — the 2001 novel “Sloppy Firsts” and the 2003 novel “Second Helpings.”

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Little, Brown signed Viswanathan to a two-book, $500,000 contract while she was in high school. This is the first book that the Harvard sophomore has produced for the publisher under that deal, and it reached 32nd on the New York Times? hardcover fiction bestseller list this week. —David Zhou —Student’s Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy (The Harvard Crimson)