How Opal F#^$*D Up

Poor, poor Kaavya Viswanathan.

We know she's pretty. We know she's smart, hell she got into Harvard. We know she has two loving parents that provided a good life for her. We know she had a bright future ahead of her (emphasis on had). Like a lot of young people all across the planet Earth, Kaavya f#@%&d up.

People f#$% up all the time. Everybody knows one girl that got pregnant by some random ass dude she didn't even like. Everybody knows somebody that wrecked their car being stupid running their mouth on the phone. Everybody has tried to bake a birthday cake and didn't check to make sure the oven was set to bake instead of broil (or is that just me?). Our mistakes, while equally stupid and tragic, wasn't as charted or monumental as Kaavya Viswanathan's.

A few weeks ago in Entertainment Weekly I read an article on a gifted young writer taking the book world to fresh new heights. The 19 year old Harvard student had just got a six figure multi-book deal. Her first book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life was being lauded as a the pearl in the oyster of teen novels. I think they reviewed it as an A-. The author was doing interviews all around the New York Times, USAToday, the book tour of course, reported movie talks and everything was roses. Turns out those roses belonged to somebody else. Specifically British writer Sophie Kinsella, author of Can You Keep a Secret? and Megan McCafferty author of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. The similarities between the books are described as "nearly identical passages"

Damn shawty. You f#*$@d up.

They yanked the books from the shelves. Movie talks are over. All that work you did at that internship is being reviewed with a super fine tooth comb. Harvard is considering expelling you. Katie Couric attacked you on the Today show. Any dream you might have imagined in the recesses of your mind of being any type of writer are over. Yeah I burnt the hell out of that cake but I can make more cakes. They probably won't let you sign credit card receipts at the Walmart checkout. Bic will refuse to sell you pens.

Its over. You're a plagiarist. That's a big word for a thief and a liar. I hear your excuses about how you didn't know. You "internalized" those books because you loved them so much. That holds about as much water as a fishing net. Sounds like the same things you hear from guys that get caught cheating by their girlfriend with an ol ugly chick. What else could she really say though?

Poor, poor Kaavya. Karma came around and got you. Not Carson Daily's sweet funny karma from my My Name is Earl but the big ol ugly boogey man looking karma that scares all the little plagiarist straight.

You f#$%*d up. Atleast you weren't on Oprah. After the way she treated that last guy for saying his book was true when it wasn't, I'd hate to imagine what she would've done to you.