From Booklist: "Before I turn 67--next March--I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." When Juska, a retired schoolteacher from Berkeley, placed this ad in the New York Review of Books, she was relatively happy with her life except that "it didn't have any touching in it." This thoroughly engaging memoir not only describes her attempt to find someone to touch, but also recounts the story of her life up to the point she placed the ad. "I am . . . a cliche," she laments, after describing her history of sexual abuse, repressed memory syndrome, weight and drug problems. The litany is familiar, to be sure, but there is nothing cliched about Juska's determination to reinvent herself. We learn of her sexual adventures and of the resulting emotional entanglements, but what is most amazing about this refreshingly honest, remarkably candid story isn't the senior sex but the courage shown by a round-heeled woman who decided it was time to pursue passion with a vengeance.

In the last couple of pages, she hit on the head what was driving her: some place to pour out the passion she had poured out on teaching. The passion in her teaching and the involvement of her students resonated with me. The parts of the book where she talks about it deserve a 10. I felt the sex binge was sad and unfulfilled. That kind of passion can't limit itself to one-night stands and she discovered that. "Once you've had a lot of sex with a man you like, how can you stop wanting him?" You can't. She fell in love with one soul-mate after another, having defined in her ad the terms of failure. When someone shares your interests, is kind and funny and gives you what you want in bed, you're in love. She seemed pathetic. She could have a good relationship with someone without marriage, but she doesn't seem to know that. I may have to move An Unaccompanied Woman further to the top of Mt. Toobie.

Going back to it's owner, who has decided she would like to re-read it.