The author describes an innocent girl, Maria, who imagines a number of fantasy relationships with boys who go to school with her. While she endures one disappointment after another with the boys she meets, she eventually grasps the reality that true love and sexual enjoyment are two distinct states. While she believes one day her true love will appear, she devotes herself to learning how to use her beauty and her allure to manipulate men. By the time she is 22, Maria has saved up enough money from her job at a drapery company to travel to Rio de Janeiro alone for a week’s vacation. Almost immediately, she meets Roger, a cabaret owner from Geneva, Switzerland, who offers her a job as a samba dancer at his club. Maria flies with Roger to Switzerland, where she is promptly turned over to the care of an older Brazilian woman who explains to her all the details in her work contract that she should have asked about before coming to Geneva. * Additional information for buyer : This book does have some page distortions. Other than that, the quality is pretty fair.