The Risk of Us

Name: The Risk of Us
Brand: Recorded Books
Availability: InStock
Author: Rachel Howard
ISBN: 9781980029533

Author: Rachel Howard

Narrator: Susan Bennett

Unabridged: 5 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 04/09/2019

Categories: Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis

A poignant, dazzling debut novel about a woman who longs to be a mother and the captivating yet troubled child she and her husband take in. What is the cost of motherhood? When The Risk of Us opens, we meet a forty-something woman who deeply wants to become a mother. The path that opens up to her and her husband takes them through the foster care system, with the goal of adoption. And when seven-year-old Maresa-with inch-deep dimples and a voice that can beam to the moon--comes into their lives, their hearts fill with love. But her rages and troubles threaten to crack open their marriage. Over the course of a year, as Maresa approaches the age at which children become nearly impossible to place, the couple must decide if they can be the parents this child needs, and finalize the adoption-or give her up. For fans of Jenny Offill and Rachel Cusk, The Risk of Us deftly explores the inevitable tests children bring to a marriage, the uncertainties of family life, and the ways true empathy obliterates our defenses.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Angela M is taking a break.

This is not an easy book to read, yet I couldn’t put it down. It’s a short book that manages to cover complex emotions as well as the complexity of the foster care system. The story is narrated by a woman whose name we never learn and she addresses her husband, Sebastian and the troubled child, Mare......more

Goodreads review by Sharon

The Risk of Us is an emotional, compelling and heartbreaking story. I found this to be a difficult book to read because of the subject matter and yet I couldn’t put it down. Sebastian and his wife (who we never discover her name) have made the decision to go through the fostering system which will h......more

Goodreads review by Helena

This is the story of a couple’s struggle to fall in love with a child, told with lyrical precision and a complete absence of sentimentality. The unnamed narrator is a woman in her forties, a writer and teacher who comes to parenting relatively late and chooses to foster a child with a view to adopti......more

Goodreads review by Felicia

THE RISK of us is an incredible book about parenting, adoptions, relationships, and the judgments and expectations society puts on everyone without any easy answers. The way the protagonist, the mother, navigated a world where there are no hard truths and even the expects weren't always right was so......more