For almost a year, writer Cait Corrain left negative—and even abusive—reviews on the Goodreads profiles of books by other debut authors. Although Corrain created anonymous sock puppet accounts for these reviews, her victims eventually pieced together what was happening. Now, after initially blaming the reviews on an imaginary friend, Corrain has come clean.
On Monday night, Corrain posted a letter to X (formerly Twitter), largely blaming mental health struggles and addiction for her actions. “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 shame and a misguided belief that with the right medicine or enough therapy, I could beat it,” Corrain writes.
Corrain also implies that a new medication caused a “complete psychological breakdown” that made her create six new Goodreads profiles under which she wrote abusive reviews.
“While I might not have been sober or of sound mind during this time,” Corrain writes, “I accept 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.”
Medication doesn’t make you racist
After Corrain posted the letter, several commenters pointed out an obvious problem with her explanation: Starting a new medication doesn’t turn someone into a racist.
As our Alyssa Shotwell has previously reported, Corrain’s review-bombing largely targeted writers of color, as she used her anonymous accounts to leave one-star reviews on those authors’ titles. Meanwhile, she used the accounts to give her own book, Crown of Starlight, five stars. Although it wasn’t hard for impacted authors to figure out who was behind the accounts, it wasn’t until author Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a 31-page Google doc of evidence that Corrain was finally held accountable.
After she was exposed, Corrain initially claimed that a friend named Lilly had review-bombed the authors on Corrain’s behalf. However, Corrain admits in her letter that Lilly doesn’t exist. Corrain’s agent and publisher dropped her after her actions came to light.
(featured image: Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images)
