"The Risk of Us," by Rachel Howard

It is a familiar story. A couple desperately wants to have children “naturally,” but is unsuccessful. They decide to try fostering a child, with the idea of eventually adopting her or him. Thus a seven-year-old enters their lives, and thus their complicated, difficult time with little Maresa begins. The focus of this novel (which seems almost memoiristic), “The Risk of Us” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), by Rachel Howard, is their coming to terms with the child’s acting out, caused by the trauma she has already endured in her young life. The would-be parents struggle mightily, and we the readers feel torn between sympathy for the parents and heartache for the child. The hardest part for the reader is, perhaps, knowing that the child has very real reasons for her more-than-challenging behavior, yet feeling overwhelmed and even at times even repulsed by her behavior, and then feeling guilty about our negative feelings. We read about it all in excruciating detail. Does the couple stick it out? Does Maresa’s behavior improve? What does the future bring? You have to read the novel to learn the answers. It is sometimes a tough read, but the topic is important and the writing is compelling.