Give me your tired Harvard sophomores

There's a whole mini-scandal going on over a novel by -- perhaps I should say "by" in quotes -- Kaavya Viswanathan, an attractive Indian-American Harvard sophomore. The book, with the cringe-worthy but marketable title How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, got a lot of attention because of its author's youth and because it got a half million dollar advance.

Unfortunately, it turns out the book contains many passages quite similar to novels by Megan McCafferty, of whose work Viswanathan now says she is a "big fan," and she must have "unconsiciously" soaked up McCafferty's prose. The story has now percolated ot the point where there's a NYT story.

Galleycat is all over this, so read their posts about the author apologizing for the "similarities" and especially this bit on 17th St. Productions, the "book packager" who may actually be the people responsible for getting Viswanathan into this mess. Backstory: Viswanathan originally turned in a "much darker" first draft, but after 17th St. got ahold of it, it turned into a fluffy teen-ready chicklit novel.

Previously: The Soy Luck Club