How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life (2006) When she can't answer the dean's first question — "What do you like to do for fun?" — in her Harvard admissions interview, goal-oriented Opal… Fiction Little Brown & Company

Details Release Date: Apr 04, 2006; Writer: Kaavya Viswanathan; Genre: Fiction; Publisher: Little Brown & Company

When she can't answer the dean's first question — ''What do you like to do for fun?'' — in her Harvard admissions interview, goal-oriented Opal Mehta redirects her cerebral energy to the pursuit of popularity, Manolo Blahniks, and throwing the perfect kegger. ''What if Harvard rejected me,'' she frets, ''because I couldn't prove myself to be a whole, desirable woman?'' Opal is a refreshing departure from the boozy, promiscuous Gossip Girls who dominate the YA market, but the obvious just-be-yourself lesson in Kaavya Viswanathan's How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life falls flat. By the end, even Opal's Ivy League ambitions feel shallow.

Originally posted Mar 31, 2006 Published in issue #871 Apr 07, 2006 Order article reprints