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How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life

Satirical and Picaresque Fiction

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a 2006 young adult novel by Kaavya Viswanathan. It follows an academically driven Indian American teenager who, after a Harvard admissions officer tells her she is not well rounded enough, sets out to remake herself into a typical American teenager who is social, fashion conscious and boy focused. The novel became controversial after it emerged that passages had been drawn from earlier books by Megan McCafferty, Salman Rushdie and Meg Cabot; Viswanathan said the similarities were unintentional, but her publisher withdrew all copies and canceled her contract for a second book. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Facts
Classification
Audience
Young Adult 1
Original Language
English 1
Composed, From (Year)
2006 1
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (Wikipedia)
  • Audience statement
    How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a 2006 young adult novel by Kaavya Viswanathan.
  • Lead paragraph
    How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a controversial young adult novel by Kaavya Viswanathan, written just after she graduated from high school.
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