Kaavya Viswanathan Cheater Pants

I had to change one of my staff picks yesterday and it made me very cranky. A few months ago I read about a book in Publisher's Weekly and got a free copy. It was called How Opal Mehta Got Wild, Got Kissed and Got a Life. It was a fun read, I thought lots of college bound kids could relate so I've been talking it up every since. Now, as Oprah might say, I feel duped. It turns out the author, a Harvard sophomore named Kaavya Viswanathan, stole entire passages from another author, Megan Mccaffery.

grrrrr

As a bookseller I'm pissed that I was recommending the damn thing and as someone working on a book of her own, I'm angry that some other, more worthy author who wrote all their own material didn't get the half million dollar, two book deal.

Kaavya, I hope you never get published again. No matter how young you were when you wrote it there is no excuse. If you can get into the Ivy League I think you know what plagarizing is. I also think Harvard should kick you out for conduct unbecoming one of their students even though it wasn't in your schoolwork that you cheated. (At least not that we know of.)

In short Kaavya, you're a cheater pants and I hope you get what's coming to you.