A review by maureensbooks89
The Father by Anton Svensson

5.0

Normally I don’t read books like ‘The Father’. I read crime books, mysteries and detectives but a based-on-a-true-event crime novel, written through the eyes of the ‘criminals’ is definitely a first for me. But this book just sounded so good, and the cover looked amazing, I decided it was time to try out a book like this.

Although this book is very different than my normal reads, I was hooked to the pages from the moment I started reading. The authors definitely have a special way of writing and I was completely intrigued by it. This book alters between the past and the present, and it alters between the point of view of all the main characters. That sounds like a confusing part, but for this book it really worked perfectly.
On the front of my review copy of ‘The Father’, it says: “How does a child become a criminal? How does a father lose a son?”. And throughout this book, we get the answers to these questions.

We get to read parts of the bank robbers, Leo, Felix and Vincent’s youth, which really made me feel for them. And yes I know they are supposed to be the ‘bad’ guys, but they were also really human to me. Greedy and out of control.. Yes, but they didn’t sound like these truly terribly and angry people. Throughout everything they were brothers at first. Brothers who had a terrible example as a father and who taught them violence.

Reading about the robberies and about the detective wo was trying to catch them, it was really thrilling an nerve wrecking. On the one hand I was rooting for the detective to catch those robbers, but on the other hand I was rooting for Leo, Felix and Vincent. These authors definitely did a great job with making you think all kinds of things. In the end I almost didn’t know who I wanted to win.

From the moment I started reading this book, I just didn’t want to stop. I really wanted to know how this story would end. And I wasn’t satisfied until I reached the very end of the book and knew what happened.
‘The Father’ was definitely a great read. It was different, thrilling, confusing and definitely just very good.