Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but self-absorbed
Review: Jane Juska's 'A Round Heeled Woman' is an enjoyable read. I finished it in two sittings, and in the months since I read it I have found myself thinking about it still. It has the same kiss-and-tell appeal of shows like 'Sex and the City'. There are individual chapters, such as one where Juska tells about her experiences teaching writing at San Quentin, that show that Juska is a gifted writer. I admire her ability to reinvent her life and make no apologies for it.
That said, at times I found myself getting annoyed with the author. There is unquestionably something narcissistic about her personality, and I would agree with those that found some of her behavior questionable. Her need to sexualize every relationship she has seems consistent with someone who has been abused, but she never touches on this, except for a brief mention that she was in fact abused as a girl. What is the adult Juska's perspective on this? Does she think all expressions of eroticism are appropriate, or that some of her behavior is off-kilter?
By the end of the book, Juska reminded me of a certain type of self-absorbed person you encounter in life. People like this are highly entertaining to live vicariously through, but after a while you begin to feel like a prop in their life, an anonymous audience for their egotism.
Rating:
Summary: An ultimately lonely tale
Review: Jane Juska's search for late-life sex is not, as one might be led to believe by the title, a titillating steamfest. It is, instead, the ultimately lonely tale of a woman demanding the same attention and right to pleasures of all kinds that she enjoyed in her youth. It is a fascinating story, not least because Juska bares herself emotionally--so willingly does she do so, in fact, that the reader is sometimes compelled to look away. It is an astonishingly honest, forthright account of one woman's campaign to keep a sex life.Juska starts with a "New York Times Review of Books" personal ad, counting her dollars and trying to make every word count. She examines with fascination the differences between ads placed by men and those placed by women: "Somewhere I read that personal ads projected what the writers of them would like to be, not what they were: men's ads included the out-of-doors; women's, fireside coziness. It seemed to me that men wanted a way out, women a way in." The ad having been placed, Juska takes us on a whirlwind ride of dividing the ad's answers into yes, no and maybe piles; meeting different men; having dinner, conversation and yes, sex with some of the men. Beyond this, she makes the book an autobiography, talking a great deal about her growing-up years in Archbold, Ohio, about being (briefly) a wife and (forever) a mother, about teaching in high school, in college and in prison. We sense the loneliness our older years can bring, while seeing in her (mostly) bright attitude and her willingness to put herself on the line that anyone--anyone!--can go after something they want. We see that age does not protect us from yearning, from occasional foolishness, from selfishness and from making the same mistake more than once. It's a freeing and wonderful story, wonderfully told.
Rating: 
Summary: eh
Review: The idea is good, my problem is with the narrator. Juska is SO pretentious I can't stand it. She only goes out with the most erudite of men, then is disapointed when they turn out to be cads. How about opening yourself up to all types of men Jane? She thinks she's being young and hip by using words like "cool," but you can see through the attempt. The writing often meanders on topics that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH the personal ad. She is very naive trusting complete strangers when they tell her they have no std's. I don't know...I just found her annoying, naive and pretentious. Yeah, so she's over 60 and has sex. Woo-hoo.
Rating:
Summary: Who would have thought?
Review: The idea that men and women can fall madly in love at the later stages of their lives sounds ridiculous to young people who feel it their personal domain. But, in fact, where people reach the stage where survival is not as challenging, children are grown, and they have good health, it's very possible, even probable that they have as much capacity to love and greater confidence to express that joy than they would at an earlier age. The affection that people sometimes feel for each other has a resiliency and a buoyancy not possible at other times of life, and possibly more pure than when they are younger. Unable to ignore the obvious aging that a lifetime brings or the flaws that come with it, the acceptance of oldsters or the elderly is a particularly gratifying spectacle since without pretense, they are free to love each other dutifully, and intensely with the same chemistry that had always been a part of their nature. Many men feel somewhat foolish but unnecessarily since love at any age is exciting and spectacular, evidence of its importance to us as humans where the ability to show affection is charactertistic of our human qualities, and shows the breadth and depth of our loving capacity with each other.
Rating:
Summary: Herein lies the tale of an adventurous gray pantheress
Review: The Juska ad in the New York Review anchors this book's plot, but be forewarned, you will learn more about Jane, the author, than just her desire for sexual fulfillment as a senior citizen. You will learn of her warts and all, a dysfunctional wife and mother, a sexually abused chld, an alcoholic, an overeater, an intellectual to the max. And if things herein shock you, there is plenty more to delight the mature reader, male or female, as this woman tells all, reveling in her special times as a teacher, especially that time in San Quentin with her prisoner learners. Her writing institute base of teaching writing is so familiar to any English teacher who might be reading this memoir. And the revealing stories of her incarcerated students present the most moving segment of the whole book. This woman loves life and just happens to believe in making sure that she participates in it with companions to touch and stroke her needy body. In conjunction with these intimate encounters comes true enlightment, as she falls in love with New York City, and partakes of special places, including the actual writings of Herman Melville. She is indomitable, indefatiguable, a woman who does not let her calendar age stop her from really living. Her independance, not that of a wealthy woman, comes purely from determination. She is, therefore, an inspiration to those who are aging, the baby boomers who may foolishly wonder whether they should just long for times gone by, or if they should strike out and LIVE! Jane Juska is a brave woman, as she bares her soul and tells all the secrets without disguising them in a work of fiction. I am glad my best friend from our teen years gave me this book to read and review.
Rating:
Summary: Charming, but Somewhat Misguided
Review: The warmth and charm of Jane Juska permeates her book and that's what makes it so readable. I would definitely read another book by her, just because her style of writing is so engaging. I did feel rather sad, however, because the quality of the men she has sex with seems pretty low. They are for the most part too old for her, and the happy part comes in the end when she ends up with a thirty-something. Good for her.
One objection I have is that she subscribes to the myth of the vaginal orgasm, and women should know by now there is no such thing. In another book about middle-aged dating, BABY BOOMER BACHELORETTE, Patsy Stagner demystifies the process and bursts many dating myths such as the vaginal orgasm. She encourages older women to date younger men and teaches them how to do it. It would make a good companion to this book.
Rating:
Summary: She proves it is never too late after all
Review: This writer's talent deserves a better vehicle than this IMO, but it is a great first book and let us hope she follows it with another. Briefly, she "protected" herself from men for many years by putting on weight (never mind that some men would not be put off by extra pounds) then lost the weight and decided she wanted to have a frolic. She placed what amounted to a personal ad (dreadful!) in The New York Times Review of Books of all places, then tossed all the responses which were from the literary challenged (or otherwise tasteless). The responses she followed up on were from astonishingly cultured duds with nary a stud in sight. After an incredibly bad series of experiences with older men, she finally hooked up with what most women want anyway - a younger man - and the book ends on a happy note. Lovers of romance novels of the racier sort might like this - if they are OK with the fact that every word of it is true. General readers will like it precisely because it is true.
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