I've been seeing both of Cudney's books floating around on Goodreads in my feed for a while now, and I have been wanting to read both of them. I decided to start with his latest one, Father Figure, and I wasn't sure what was going to go down in it. But boy, this book was a twisty, emotional, and awesome adventure!

Let me start by saying I loved the alternating perspectives between 1984 and 2004. First, I love the 80's and second I was 19 in 2004 and loved that year! This story is  very character driven and as I've mentioned before, those are my absolute favorite kinds of books.

Let's start with Amalia! Oh man, this girl... I loved this character. Not every girl in life is born a fighter. A lot of times a way a person is raised can have a huge impact on who they become. Amalia had one of the worst kind of mothers possible. After a tragedy with her father, circumstances lead Amalia on a journey where sometimes she doesn't know what she wants—sometimes she is needy, sometimes she wants to find the one goodness she had in life, her father, in someone else. Through all the events, she really grew as a character. And some of the events were downright awful.

Brianna reminded me of several of my friends in high school. Sometimes you just aren't sure of what you want, be it sexuality, a career, life in general. When you're young and even as an adult things aren't always clear. This leads Brianna to also want to find out about her missing father which sets her on a path that leads to all kinds of twists and turns. I'm going to be honest here, I'm quite good at guessing twists, but I did not see these coming.

Father Figure is well written and an addictive novel filled with a bottle full of emotions. I can't wait to read Cudney's other book!