Author Rachel Howard writes of a couple’s struggle to adopt a foster child. It comes as no surprise that the child the narrator and her husband Sebastian choose to foster is a troubled child, Marisa. Having worked with such damaged children, I fully understand the difficulties in handling such a child. There is no sentimentality here, just hard truths and some moments of true joy.
The couple falls in love with Maresa because she has a huge voice (her “opera voice”) and is an excellent artist, giving them—and her—some commonalities. She is also physically active and boisterous. Parenting is hard enough, but raising a troubled child is even harder, and Howard writes unflinchingly of these challenges.
Sebastian and his wife are artists, and becoming parents affords them little time to be creative. Not only do adoptive parents have to care for the child, they must learn to navigate the arcane workings of the foster care system, find an appropriate therapist, and negotiate with clueless caseworkers who are promoting a book written by a man who has been shown to be unqualified. This book isn’t simply about adoption, it also looks at parenting itself and how a child can warp the structure of the most stable marriage. An excellent read, so tightly in the mother’s point of view that The Risk of Us reads like a memoir.
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The Risk of Us is available through: Amazon | B&N
