“Pulpy, peppery and sinister, served up in a comic deadpan…This scorpion-tailed little thriller leaves a response, and a sting, you will remember.”–NEW YORK TIMES“The wittiest and most fun murder party you’ve ever been invited to.”–MARIE CLAIREWINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR MYSTERY/THRILLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 WOMEN’S PRIZEA short, darkly funny, hand grenade of a novel … PRIZE
A short, darkly funny, hand grenade of a novel about a Nigerian woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends
“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”
Korede is bitter. How could she not be? Her sister, Ayoola, is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola’s third boyfriend in a row is dead.
Korede’s practicality is the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood, the trunk of her car is big enough for a body, and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures of her dinner to Instagram when she should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Not that she gets any credit.
Korede has long been in love with a kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where she works. She dreams of the day when he will realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and how far she’s willing to go to protect her.
Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.
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An outstanding debut novel–audacious, darkly funny, and immensely readable. Braithwaite’s narrator relates the story with an easy, deadpan wit in the face of some pretty lurid goings-on; it’s a novel that takes several risks and is all the better for having done so. Although some chapters (especially during the third act) seem a bit fragmented or disjointed, their abbreviated nature makes sense in light of the discoveries the narrator makes about not only her sister, but herself. Highly recommended!
I probably would have enjoyed this one more if going in I knew that is was more literally and not a thriller, the title and marketing for this book were a bit misleading. But overall I still enjoyed it and read it in a single night!
The writing and character creation were great, even though I thought most of the characters were pretty unlikeable it was an entertaining character study.
This one was a bit odd for sure. I wavered between 3 and 4 stars.
A quick good read.
This book is a quick read with welcome insight into a different culture. It’s ending has stuck with me for several weeks now.
I loved this book, it was a great escape from reality. The chapters are short, but each one is packed with a punch. This beauty is definitely a page-turner. Truly, looking forward to reading more stories written by this author.
This book totally blew me away. It feels like poetry jumping off the pages.
First off, I loved the idea of the sister relationship as it involves murders. Then it’s got an amazing Lagos vibe which I really enjoyed. I love how Braithwaite is able to pull off both dark and comedic.
My only slight issue came from the off-beat conclusion, but it does make you think…
A wonderful book that I flew through because of its unique vibrant characters and community.
I enjoyed the characters and style of writing
Four stars…the love between sisters is a wonderful thing…until it’s not!
Another of my top 10 reads in the first half of this year (by writers I don’t know well enough to invite to dinner): Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer: A page-turner that bends in directions you don’t expect and keeps you on your toes, exposing some unhappy truths about sisterhood, gender expectations, and power, especially in the setting of contemporary Lagos, Nigeria, but I think anywhere. Writers: a great book to study for limited pov, the everyman/woman protagonist forced to act, family and sister relationships, gender and feminist issues.
If you know anything about me through Social Media, you’d know I’ve been DYING to read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I asked for it on every book giveaway and almost bought it at Barnes and Nobel. But, the day came where my library said it was on hold for me. I rushed home with this treasure and dug in. Well, it certainly wasn’t what I expected.
Set in Nigeria, Korede is a nurse, devoted to her patients and well-respected by her bosses. She is also always coming to the aid of her younger and more beautiful sister, Ayoola, who, as it happens, has a bad habit of killing her boyfriends.
One night Ayoola calls Korede to her boyfriend’s house, claiming self-defense she finds her boyfriend dead, stabbed to death. No matter what the facts are, who would disbelieve Ayoola? Korede is the sensible and logical one who takes charge of the situation. From cleaning up the blood, to disposing the body, Korede took care of it. It would be no surprise as this is the third boyfriend Ayoola has killed.
“Femi makes three, you know. Three and they label you a serial killer.”
Korede deep down inside is jealous and angry of her beautiful, yet flawed sister, but she always comes to her rescue. On the other hand her sister, Ayoola is self-absorbed and boasts her beauty, and couldn’t care less about the stress and burden she causes Korede. But Ayoola has now set her sights closer to Korede, Tade, a kind and handsome doctor she works with.
Tade is also the man Korede is secretly in love with, but she’s no match for Ayoola. Korede struggles with this internal tug of war, where she wants to reveal her sister’s secret, but she also wants to protect her. But what will happen if she doesn’t stop her sister?
So, my major flaw with this book is it’s too short. Shocking right? I felt like it went too fast and there could have been so much more. I wanted other details into Ayoola’s murders and even a back story as to why she kills. I was waiting for more, and it really just fell flat.
Where I really loved this book was its dark humor and satire. I absolutely love dark humor in books and movies. I know it goes over the heads of most people and can be very subtle. If you don’t pay attention to the writing by Braithwaite, you’d never see the stunningly dark humor of this book.
While I had high expectations for this book, I found both positive and negative aspects of My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. I found the plot of this book is what drew me in; the characters were entertaining and charming; and the dark humor in the writing left me in awe. But, it honestly was too short and fell flat in the unraveling of the back story of Ayoola as a serial killer. I’m pretty much on the fence with this one. Not as good as I had hoped!
Read my full review here: https://bit.ly/2C4q8nf
Horrible book. Didn’t even want to finish
This book was fantastic! I loved the main character!!
I expected a witty, sarcastic commentary on today’s society and instead got an intense family scene with no drama added. It’s not enough to say that this book is an indictment against mental and physical abuse or that Ms. Braithwaite shows the effects of above in high relief against a background of dedication to the healing arts. She shows us the results in clear, stark prose that washes like acid against the happy family myths we all know. I love this story. It will stay with me a long time.
Thanks to NetGalley and to Atlantic Books (Doubleday) for providing me an ARC copy of this book that I freely chose to review.
The title of this book hooked me. The fact that it was set in Lagos, Nigeria, made it more attractive. I could not resist the cover. And then I started reading and got hit by this first paragraph:
“Ayoola summons me with these words —Korede, I killed him. I had hoped I would never hear those words again.”
Told in the first person by Korede, the book narrates her story and that of her “complex” relationship with her younger sister, Ayoola, beautiful, graceful, a successful designer, beloved of social media, irresistible to men, the favourite of everybody… She’s almost perfect. But, there is a big but, which you will have guessed from the title. She is a serial killer.
This is a short and very funny book, although it requires a certain kind of sense of humour on the part of the reader. You need to be able to appreciate sarcasm and dark humour (very dark) to find it funny, but if you do, this is a fresh voice and a different take on what has become an extremely popular genre recently, domestic noir. I kept thinking about the many novels I had read where I had commented on the setting of the book and how well the author had captured it. There are no lengthy descriptions in this novel, but it manages to capture the beat and the rhythm of Lagos (a place where I’ve never been, I must admit) and makes us appreciate what life must be like for the protagonists. Because, although Ayoola is a murderer, life goes on, and Korede has to keep working as a nurse, she is still in love (or so she thinks) with one of the doctors at the hospital, their mother still suffers from her headaches, Ayoola wants to carry on posting on Snapchat, the patient in coma Korede confides in needs to be looked after, the police need to be seen to be doing something, and there are more men keen on spending time with beautiful Ayoola…
I found Korede understandable, although I doubt that we are meant to empathise with her full-heartedly. At some points, she seems to be on a victim, trapped in a situation she has no control over. At others, we realise that we only have her own opinion of her sister’s behaviour, and she has enabled the murderous activities of her sibling, in a strange symbiotic relationship where neither one of them can imagine life without the other. We learn of their traumatic past, and we can’t help but wonder what would we do faced with such a situation? If your sister was a psychopath (not a real psychiatric diagnosis, but I’m sure she’d score quite high in the psychopathy scale if her sister’s description is accurate) who kept getting into trouble, always blaming it on others, would you believe her and support her? Would you help her hide her crimes? Is blood stronger than everything else?
I loved the setting, the wonderful little scenes (like when Tade, the attractive doctor, sings and the whole city stops to listen, or when the police take away Korede’s car to submit it to forensic testing and then make her pay to return it to her, all dirty and in disarray), the voice of the narrator and her approach to things (very matter-of-fact, fully acknowledging her weaknesses, her less-than-endearing personality, sometimes lacking in insight but also caring and reflective at times), and the ending as well. I also enjoyed the writing style. Short chapters, peppered with Yoruba terms, vivid and engaging, it flows well and it makes it feel even briefer than it is.
If you enjoy books with a strong sense of morality and providing deep lessons, this novel is not for you. Good and bad are not black and white in this novel, and there is an undercurrent of flippancy about the subject that might appeal to fans of Dexter more than to those who love conventional thrillers or mysteries. But if you want to discover a fresh new voice, love black humour, and are looking for an unusual setting, give it a go. I challenge you to check a sample and see…
This was a deep-dive into the complexity of sisterhood and love and family and what you’re willing to do for someone who has been through the sh*t with you. I laughed. I yelled. I groaned knowingly. I thought the ending was perfect. Oooooooohhhhh get your hands on this one, my grown-up friends. It’s hard to explain, but this is sharp, fantastic writing you won’t want to miss.
I am truly amazed with this book. It really goes to show the bind that Korede and Ayoola. It seems that their childhood was so rough and Ayoola picked up a streak from her father. It had my blood boiling when she choose to turn on the Dr, but then again, he showed his true colors and he got what he deserved.
I listened to the audio book and was very pleased because I know I would have had time pronouncing the language and that would detract from the store. It is a shame that she didn’t reach out to Muata, as I think it would have been good for her. But she would have to abandon hesister, and she was not and will not be prepared to do that.
Ayoola is a trip.
Utterly twisted story of sisterly devotion, couldn’t put it down.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with “My Sister, the Serial Killer” by Oyinkan Braithwaite but once I’d started to flick through it and read a couple of pages I was hooked and before I knew it, I was a third of the way through!
Thoroughly modern and set in Lagos, Nigeria, this is a quick, enjoyable read that is dark, humorous and shows the bond between two sisters that stays strong no matter what….including murder.
Every man falls in love with young and gorgeous Ayoola, the minute they set eyes on her. Fatally for them though, when she has grown bored of them she kills them and then calls her sister Korede to help clean up the mess. Crazy right? But with her sister a neat freak and a hospital nurse who better to call on to keep her secrets?
This mad but exciting and thoroughly enjoyable read is addictive and has characters you can’t help but endear to, both sisters have unusual qualities and the story was a pleasure to read.
A completely original and unique premise that offers the reader a touch of humour to an otherwise dark and twisted tale, you can’t help smiling at many of the quirky chapters and is guaranteed to have you turning the pages quicker than you can read them.
If you’re into intelligent, complicated and descriptive literary novels this won’t be for you – this story is easy to follow with a simple storyline that’s fast, enjoyable and leaves you feeling so glad that you’ve found such a fun read.
4.5 rounded up to 5 stars
Some readers will be attracted to My Sister the Serial Killer due to its captivating cover, others will automatically be drawn in by the compelling words “serial killer” in the title. Still others will be curious about a book written by a new author who has received many positive reviews. Regardless, all those who pick up Oyinkan Braithwaite’s short novel will be richly rewarded for the experience. Set in Lagos, Nigeria this book is less of a true thriller and more of a literary gem with an edge. The author tells a tale about women’s roles and the familial responsibilities assigned to them by cultural expectations and external assessments of worth. Two sides of one coin, Korede and Ayoola are sisters that complement each other as archetypes. Korede, a nurse, is the older sister-plain and serious. She is the prototypical protector and responsible one of the two. Ayoola is the carefree beauty who has come to expect all the attention and privilege that her looks have always engendered. The book’s short chapters flash back and forth in time, exploring the women’s troubled upbringing and the genesis of their predictably symbiotic relationship. A bit more unusual is the development that Ayoola has recently been killing off her suitors, and Korede has been helping to clean and cover up the mess. Their loyalty is tested, however, when Korede’s secret object of affection becomes ensnared by her sister’s charms. My Sister the Serial Killer depicts women as strong and resourceful despite being confined by a patriarchal society that idolizes, abuses or ignores them. Braithwaite explores these complex themes in a novel that is refreshingly unique, deeply funny and insightful. Hopefully, she will continue to surprise readers with future works to enjoy and contemplate.