Singles Game (Weisberger)

The Singles Game 
Lauren Weisberger, 2016
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476778211


Summary
The new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Devil Wears Prada —a dishy tell-all about a beautiful tennis prodigy who, after changing coaches, suddenly makes headlines on and off the court.

How far would you go to reach the top?

When America’s sweetheart, Charlotte “Charlie” Silver, makes a pact with the devil—the infamously brutal tennis coach Todd Feltner—she finds herself catapulted into a world of celebrity stylists, private parties, charity matches aboard mega-yachts, and secret dates with Hollywood royalty.

Under Todd’s new ruthless regime, Charlie the good girl is out. Todd wants “Warrior Princess” Charlie all the way. After all, no one ever wins big by playing nice.

Celebrity mags and gossip blogs go wild for Charlie as she jets around the globe chasing Grand Slam titles and Page Six headlines. But as the Warrior Princess’s star rises on and off the court, it comes at a cost. In a world obsessed with good looks and hot shots, is Charlie Silver willing to lose herself to win it all?

Sweeping from Wimbledon to the Caribbean, from the US Open to the Mediterranean, The Singles Game is a sexy and wickedly entertaining romp through a world where the stakes are high—and no one plays by the rules. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1977
• Raised—Scranton and Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Cornell University
• Currently—lives in New York City


Lauren Weisberger is the American author of six novels. She is best known for her 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a speculated roman a clef of her real life experience as a put-upon assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.

Early life and education
Weisberger was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to a school teacher mother and a department-store-president turned mortgage-broker father. Weisberger was raised in Conservative Judaism and later Reform Judaism. She spent her early youth in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, a small town outside Scranton. At 11, her parents divorced and she and her younger sister, Dana, moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state, with their mother.

At Parkland High School, in South Whitehall Township near Allentown, Weisberger was involved in intramural sports, some competitive sports, extra projects, and organizations. She graduated in 1995. She attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was an English major, graduating in 1999.

After college, she traveled as a backpacker through Europe, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. Returning home, she moved to Manhattan and was hired as Wintour's assistant at Vogue. She was there for ten months before leaving along with features editor Richard Story. While Weisberger said she felt out of place at the magazine, managing editor Laurie Jones later said, "She seemed to be a perfectly happy, lovely woman".

Weisberger and Story began working for Departures Magazine, an American Express publication, where she wrote 100-word reviews and became an assistant editor. She also published a 2004 article in Playboy magazine.

After mentioning her interest in writing classes to her boss, Richard Story, he referred her to his friend Charles Salzberg. She started writing a story about her time at Vogue, and completed it by trying to write 15 pages every couple of weeks. After repeated urgings, she showed the finished work to agents; it sold within two weeks.

Novels
In 2003, Weisberger's first book, The Devil Wears Prada, was released and spent six months on the New York Times Best Seller List. The book is a semi-fictional but highly critical view of the Manhattan elite. As of July 2006, The Devil Wears Prada was the best-selling mass-market softcover book in the nation, according to Publishers Weekly. The book is largely based on Weisberger's experience at Vogue. There is much speculation that the character of Miranda Priestly represents aspects of Anna Wintour. The fictional Elias-Clark publishing company is said to be modeled after Condé Nast.

The book calls into light the many aspects of one's first job. It also highlights the presumed insanity of the fashion world and the difficulty and pressure a person goes through when trying to balance a demanding job with an adequate social life. The book provides a comical insight into the fashion world. While this book was met with stunning success, one former employee of Anna Wintour, Kate Betts, criticized Weisberger and the book in The New York Times, saying that Weisberger and Wintour are the direct counterparts of their fictional characters and that "Andrea ... is just as much a snob as the snobs she is thrown in with." In 2013 Weisberger published a sequel of the book:  Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns.

Weisberger's second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, was published in fall of 2005 and is based upon the trials and tribulations of the New York City public relations world. It received generally unfavorable reviews. Despite debuting on the New York Times Best Sellers List at No. 10, it dropped off the list in two weeks and was noted for its disappointing sales.

Chasing Harry Winston is Weisberger's third novel, released in 2008. The main characters are three best friend New Yorkers facing the horror of turning 30. The book was panned by critics and was voted "#1 Worst Book of 2008" by Entertainment Weekly.

Last Night at Chateau Marmont was released in 2010 and debuted at No. 9 on the New York Times Bestseller List on September 5, 2010

Revenge Wears Prada, a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, was released in 2013. It debuted at No. 3 on the New York Times Bestseller List. Weisbeger's sixth book came out in 2016: The Singles Game, a look at the highstakes world of professional tennis.

Short Stories
Her short story "The Bamboo Confessions" is included in the anthology American Girls About Town. It is about a New York City backpacker who travels around the world and begins to view her love life back home in a different light. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/11/2013.)

Book Reviews
A sparkling novel about a tennis pro who stages a big comeback with the help of her shark-like new coach…the book zooms along in the great tradition of summer reads…If you’re looking for a fast-paced romance with believable characters, Weisberger serves it up right.
Washington Post


Lauren Weisberger, author of the best-selling The Devil Wears Prada, trades fashion magazine politics for the drama that often follows the elite world of competitive tennis in her new book…Weisberger is able to weave interesting aspects of Charlie's celebrity life and work ethic into the fabric of a sizzling love story.
Readers will rally along with Charlie's entourage.
Associated Press


[The Singles Game is] brilliantly written, fun and so stuffed full with interesting characters you won’t be able to put it down.
Daily Mail (UK)


The Devil Wears Prada scribe turns her biting wit to the high stakes world of women’s pro tennis. Look out for cameos from David Beckham and Princes Will and Harry, not to mention lots of sizzling locker-room antics.
Cosmopolitan


A good-girl tennis star is pushed by her tough-genius coach into intense training—and even more intense celebrity status. Lauren Weisberger does the high life like nobody else.
Glamour.com


Tennis fans will love the spot-on descriptions of life on the tour. Weisberger fans will welcome a protagonist who learns to control her life even while living the dream. And women’s-fiction fans will cheer that they’ve found the perfect beach read.
Booklist


Weisberger follows her formula of launching a naïve young woman into uncharted territory....While it lacks the bite of Weisberger's beloved The Devil Wears Prada, this is still a fun, fast-paced read filled with well-crafted and memorable characters.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Singles Game...then take off on your own:

1. What do you learn from The Singles Game about the professional tennis circuit? Does any of it surprise you? How realistic a portrait do you think Lauren Weisberger has drawn? Do you feel the detail enhanced the book or bogged down the pace?

2. How would you describe the people who inhabit the world of tennis—the players, coaches, and celebrities who hover around its edges or at its very center?

3. How good a tennis player is Charlie? Why do so many of the characters—her father, brother and former coach—want her to retire at 25?

4. Talk about what happens to Charlie's moral compass as she pursues higher rankings under new coach. How do the trappings of success entice young people...or people of any age? What are the dangers of succeeding at any cost?

5. If you've read The Devil Wears Prada (or seen the film), what are the similarities between that book's heroine, Andy, and this book's heroine, Charlie?

6. Talk about life on the road—not only for Charlie, but also for any sports or performance artist or, say, for politicians and business people? What are the hardships? What are the perks? How much time have you spent on the road in your life or career? Does the traveling life appeal to you?

7. The Singles Game is a coming of age story. What does Charlie come to understand about herself by the end of the novel?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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