’The goal of this book is to demonstrate with real life examples the many ways we shoot ourselves in the foot in our quest for love’ We alone are responsible for our choices. Love does not just happen to us, we choose to let it in or not. Barriers to love certainly exist in the form of unresolved hurts and anger, addictions, insecurities, and fear of intimacy or commitment. But still, love is our choice.

We choose who we will allow to love us as well as who to give our love to. Who you decide to let in to love and to love is a combination of your culture, family values, personality, spiritual beliefs, experiences and maturity, and the way you feel about yourself’

Regardless of your history and how many of the letters within these pages reflect [your] personal experiences, [the] relationship you want is out there. don't give up! Reading this book is your first step towards a better you and improved relationships with men.’
—Excerpted from Sucka Free Love  

Are you sick of dating suckas? If so, then have I got a great how-to tome for you. Sucka Free Love is the brainchild of Deborrah Cooper, a San Francisco-based relationship expert who has counseled folks in the Bay Area for 15 years on HeartBeat, her own cable TV talkshow. She also answers an array of Dear Abby-style questions from the lovelorn over the Internet at her website called AskHeartBeat.com.

The book is basically comprised of a couple hundred Ms. Cooper’s responses to inquiries about everything from cross-dressing to cyber sex to Jungle Fever. The author invariably has some sage advice to share, and does so in an interesting fashion likely to entertain readers even in entries not addressing one’s own particular issues. On erectile dysfunction remedied: ’Stop bragging you Viagra-overdosing old goat.’ On sleeping with one’s cousin: ’I suggest that you get out more and meet people you aren’t related to.’

And Deborrah is not above unleashing a well-placed expletive (’He’s full of bleep!) about a playa when it’s called for, or using tough love (’I suggest you reevaluate this’ man of my dreams’’) to bring the delusional back to reality. She also has an uncanny sense of when it’s okay to make light of a situation, like when responding to a black man who admits to having a thing for overweight white women (’I wonder if the Michelin Man has a sister?’)

Never one to mince her words, Cooper exhibits a reliably quick wit and a willingness to cut right to the chase repeatedly. When a 21 year-old guy asks about a bizarre gay practice involving gerbils, she responds, ’Idiots put animals up their butts’ you're on your own homie!’ And when a 20 year-old girl weighs-in about being bulimic to look prettier, Deborrah deals with her in just three words: ’You are stupid.’

 Besides a cornucopia of such priceless bon mots, the book has 10 Rules for Sucka Free Dating and a quiz to determine whether your partner is a keeper.

A humorous, yet no-nonsense primer on dating definitely designed with the concerns of the MySpace Generation in mind.