A new drama has taken the book publishing world by storm: The upcoming U.S. release of the horror book Shy Girl was canceled by Hachette Book Group just weeks ahead of its launch date due to suspicion of AI use in its making.
Authored by American poet and fiction writer Mia Ballard, Shy Girl is a novel described as focusing on the life of a girl with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who agrees to be held captive as an affluent man’s pet in order to rid herself of financial woes.
The book was self-published early last year. Another edition was then released in November by Hachette’s U.K. imprint Wildfire. Hachette confirmed the cancellation by U.S. imprint Orbit to The New York Times, which first reported on the story.
While Ballard’s self-published version initially received positive reviews, its more recent version has drawn speculation online.
In a Reddit thread from two months ago, one user dissected the common syntax of large language models (LLMs) and compared it with the book’s prose.
“It seems so obvious to me, but let me know if you agree,” the user said in a discussion that now includes hundreds of comments. “If it isn’t AI, she’s a terrible writer. Her writing is truly indistinguishable from an LLM.”
In January, users on the novel’s Goodreads page chimed in with their own speculation.
