While celebrating her 33rd year on the planet, perpetually single Sarah realizes something alarming: it's her ninth consecutive birthday without a boyfriend. Though she’s tried it all—speed, blind and online dating, Meet Market Adventures and Singles’ Rodeo Night—no guy lasts longer than the half and half in her empty refrigerator. And certainly not long enough to bring home to meet her aging parents. While friends marry, mortgage and multiply, she dines alone on Triscuits in a Brooklyn rental and buys Piddle Pads for friends’ babies online, wondering if it will ever be her turn. Afraid she’s cursed, or worse, unlovable, she enrolls herself in Love 101: Home School Edition, using dating guides as her textbooks. From the advice of a Buddhist reiki healer to the Millionaire Matchmaker; a Harvard M.B.A. to Dr. Phil, Dating by the Books is her quest to see if the experts can steer her love life out of the dingy garage it’s been parked in once and for all. Can they help her fix what she’s been doing wrong so she can meet Mr. Right?