A debut young adult novelist was dropped by her publisher and forced to apologize after she was caught creating fake Goodreads accounts to “one-star” bomb her non-white rivals while offering lavish praise on her own tome.
Cait Corrain, whose book “Crown of Starlight” was set to be released in May, admitted in a social media post that she was the culprit behind eight of the bogus accounts — and not a well-meaning friend as she had originally claimed.
The author blamed her actions on alcohol and drug abuse, as well as a “complete psychological breakdown” that took place earlier this month.
“Since June 2022, I’ve been fighting a losing battle against depression, alcoholism and substance abuse, the full scope of which I’ve hidden from everyone in my life out of a shame and a misguided belief that with the right medication or enough therapy, I could beat it,” Corrain wrote in a groveling apology she shared to Instagram.
The novelist explained that the accounts were created shortly after she “suffered a complete psychological breakdown” earlier this month.
“I created roughly six profiles on Goodreads and, along with two profiles I made during a similar but shorter breakdown in 2022,” she said.
“I boosted the rating of my book…” and “bombed the rating of several fellow debut authors.”
Several authors were “one-star bombed,” including Molly X. Chang, Danielle Jensen, Kamilah Cole and Bethany Baptiste. However, Corrain admitted that her “memories of this are extremely fuzzy, so it’s possible there are a couple of other authors.”
Screengrabs of some of the posts Corrain reportedly made, which are available in a public Google Doc, show she wrote of one novel, “This was legitimately awful and everyone who liked it should be ashamed of themselves.”
In another instance, she commented: “This was so bad, I’m actually writing a review about it. It’s terrible, everyone who says otherwise is on [drugs].”
Corrain also admitted in her apology that she made up a “non-existent friend who was supposedly to blame.”
“I betrayed the confidence of my agent, my pub team, my readers and my friends, and I betrayed my own deeply held values,” Corrain wrote.
She went on to say that while she “might not have been sober or of sound mind during this time,” she accepts “responsibility for the pain and suffering I caused, and my delay in posting this is due to spending the last few days offline while going through withdrawal as I sobered up enough to be brutally honest with you and myself.”
“I know some of you won’t forgive me, and I recognize that you’re not required to,” Corrain wrote. “No one ever wants to be judged by their worst actions, but that’s not always up to us.”
She added that she would reach out directly to the authors she bombed, and will be “checking into an intensive psychiatric care and rehab facility.”
But Corrain appeared to deny that any of the authors were targeted due to their race, writing she felt “no ill will towards any of them” and that at least two of the authors “just happened to be on the wrong Goodreads lists at the wrong time.”
Some authors did not accept the explanation, with Bethany Baptiste, author of the upcoming book “The Poisons We Drink” writing: “I’ll be waiting for that apology.”
Baptiste added that Corrain “gaslit,” “lied in public and in private” and “pinned it all on a fictional person with a fandom.
“It was intentional. Deliberate. She was asked many times to fess up when no one knew her name. She continued to lie after everyone knew her name,” Baptiste posted on X.
Corrain’s actions first came to light when New York Times bestselling author Xiran Jay Zhao — who uses they/them pronouns — released what they called “31 pages of receipts” in a publicly available Google Doc, exposing the fake accounts Corrain made going as far back as April.
The author of the hit novel “Iron Widow” said Corrain “expended what must have been a ton of effort to make themselves look legit by rating dozens of books.”
“But what gave away the game was that they would always rate one particular book, ‘Crown of Starlight’ by Cait Corrain on a bunch of different lists,” Xiran said in a video posted to X.
“I had known about this for a while, but I held my tongue because the victims wanted me to,” they said.
“They wanted to try and resolve it privately at first, and this did not work out. They were told to let it go… I was not gonna let it go.”
Xiran noted that when they first realized what was happening, they gave Corrain an out to come forward, posting on X: “I’m not going to leak the extensive receipts so I don’t ruin this person’s career before it even starts, but if they do anything in a similar vein… action will be taken.”
Xiran said they were then contacted by “an associate of Cait’s who claimed that the accounts were made by a friend who ‘thought they were being helpful.’”
Xiran then shared screenshots of the alleged conversation between Corrain and a friend named “Lilly,” which Xiran said felt “stilted.”
They also claimed the timestamp between the messages kept jumping between “today” and “yesterday.”
“What is this quantum dynamic time travel conversation?” they asked in their video, adding, “I did not believe the explanation.”
Xiran said they then demanded more screenshots of conversations between “Lilly” and Corrain — which were never provided.
Meanwhile, Xiran said, Corrain took to X to try to paint herself as one of the victims of the review bombing.
Xiran did not specify what she said in the video, but screenshots of posts made from Corrain’s X accounts included in the Google Doc read: “Nasty surprise of the day was learning there were fake accounts messing with my GR rating recently.
“If you’ve ACTUALLY read my book and want to rate and review it, that would be great, as reader interest pre-release tells my publisher that my book is worth investing in!” Corrain reportedly posted on December 5.
“I guess this explains why my rating was fluctuating so much,” she reportedly wrote. “If you like my book, please rate and review it.
“If you hated it, you’re also entitled to share your opinion, but making fake accounts to manipulate my book’s rating is something else entirely.”
Finally, in a private Slack channel for 2024 debut authors, Xiran said, Corrain “confessed” to being the subject of the posts and “continued with the friend explanation” but “the group did not buy it” and also demanded further proof “Lilly” existed as all of her supposed social media accounts were deleted.
When Xiran finally published the proof, they said it was like they “dropped a nuke on Book Twitter.”
Corrain’s publisher Del Rey Books has now dropped her upcoming novel, which was billed as a “re-imagining of the tale of Ariadne and Dionysus—the first book in a snarky, queer, lushly romantic duology set in a galaxy of monstrous mortals, bloodthirsty gods, and love fierce enough to shatter the cosmos.”
“We are aware of the ongoing discussion around author Cait Corrain,” Del Rey posted to X. “‘Crown of Starlight’ is no longer on our 2024 publishing schedule.”
Corrain’s agent, Rebecca Podos also cut ties with the author, writing: “Cait and I will not be continuing our partnership moving forward.
“I deeply appreciate the patience of those directly impacted by last week’s events as I worked through a difficult situation,” Podos wrote.
Meanwhile, UK publisher Daphne Press also took to X to say: “We’re aware of the conversations around Cait Corrain, one of our 2024 authors.
“We are looking into the allegations, discussing with relevant parties and determining how best to move forward once we have all of the information. We will have an announcement once this is possible.”
In their video, Xiran said she honestly does not “know why Cait made the effort to do all of this while they had a traditional publishing deal.”
They noted that Corrain’s book was “getting really great reviews from advanced readers.
“You ever seen someone destroy their own life?” Xiran asked. “Jealousy is a disease y’all.”