This was very, very hard to get into - I was confused with all of the names and the general plot as it skipped around a lot. I DNF around 17% as it didn't pull me in. I wanted to love it based on the setting and description.

Popovic writes with precision and urgency. The prose is clean but never cold; the emotional undercurrents run deep. Through Igor and Johnny, she asks what it means to be a man when manhood itself is defined by violence, and whether one can truly escape the inheritance of one’s fathers.

Fathers Before Sons is not just a story about a family feud—it’s a searing meditation on the struggle to define yourself when your identity has already been written in blood.