The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer

Books Read in 2023: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

“We are nothing if not thorough in our deception of others.”

My Sister, The Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

‘It takes a whole lot longer to dispose of a body than to dispose of a soul...’

Thriller novel about Korede, Nigerian woman whose sister, Ayoola, keeps killing her boyfriends (apparently in self-defense) and asking for help with the cover-up

Korede has obliged so far out of loyalty to her sister, but when Ayoola begins dating a doctor at Korede's hospital, she must weigh where her loyalties lie

Nigerian setting + characters

Caribe's New Works by Black Authors TBR - Part 2

Category: Mystery & Horror

Howdy Friends!

Today was the last day of classes for this semester, and my writing professor handed out books to each of us picked based on what we tended to write. She wants us to read them and be further encouraged to continue writing, so I thought I’d share it with all of you! I intend to read this on my flights home for winter break. Any of y’all have thoughts on it?

You know what's better than a pair of sisters who are trauma bonded, with one of them commiting atrocities, and the other one with an endless capacity to look the other way??

TWO pair of sisters who are trauma bonded, with one of them commiting atrocities, and the other one with an endless capacity to look the other way.

Book review: My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

5.0 out of 5.0 - MY SISTER THE SERIAL KILLER by Oyinkan Braithwaite (my 2nd read of the challenge, running from 26 Dec 2022 to 25 Dec 2023) 

I really enjoyed this. It's a fast-paced read and the tension between the characters keeps pulling you through the story! I started it for book club and then ADHD happened and I forgot all about it for a few months, very glad I picked it up again and this time just devoured it. I love the exploration of family and sibling rivalry and loyalty, but also the different motivations for remaining loyal to someone with whom you have a difficult and complex relationship. There was enough backstory to fill in the blanks, and to infer a lot of the motives that the narrator had and didn't explicitly talk about, and I loved the way it left things open and didn't sacrifice the pacing for info dumps or introspection.

Not that it lacked any of that - the whole book is quiet, contained, and the action in it is mostly off-page, since the narrator is the one with the routine and quiet personal life. That just makes the gap between the sisters more intense and adds to the sense of difference between them.

Read this if: - you like fast, light-toned reads about darker subject matter

- you're ok to read books that deal with domestic abuse (physical) towards wife and children, the punishment for which is hinted at

- you like unreliable narrators, and stories told in a mix of longer and shorter sections that feed smoothly into the whole picture like a jigsaw puzzle, so you can see the whole shape if you read between the lines as well as the lines themselves

- you want a reflective, tense story about siblings and the nature of twisted sibling relationships, disappointed/thwarted/unrequited love, and the complex adulthood pain of being eclipsed and disbelieved simply by not being the 'pretty sister', rather than an action-packed gorefest or police procedural (it's neither of these)

Reading Resolution: “My Sister, The Serial Killer” by Oyinkan Braithwaite

6. A book written in Africa: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

List Progress: 9/30

How far can familial love go? Is there such a thing as unconditional love, love that has absolutely nothing that could stop or lessen it? Most people, if pressed, have some conditions they put on the love they feel for others, even their nearest and dearest. But Korede, the protagonist of 2018 Nigerian novel My Sister, The Serial Killer, has no conditions on her love for her younger sister Ayoola, the titular serial killer. She doesn’t particularly like Ayoola, she resents her and carries a lot of anger towards the ways she has hurt Korede and others, but at the end of the day she has a cold, fierce love for her baby sister that is free of any and all conditions. And that is truly a terrible thing, but makes for a tense novel.

Author Oyinkan Braithwaite tells the story of Korede, a meticulous nurse working in a small hospital in Lagos, and her gorgeous, charming, magnetic sister Ayoola, who holds the spotlight in every room she walks into. Bonded by a traumatic childhood, Korede sees it as her job to protect Ayoola, even when she calls her in the middle of the night to help her deal with a boyfriend that Ayoola killed in self-defense. But the novel opens with the third dead boyfriend, and the claim of self-defense is ringing more than a little hollow. Korede can’t turn Ayoola in without revealing her own role in cleaning up the crime scenes, but far more important than that, she can’t turn her back on her sister. Korede gets by by unloading her soul to comatose patients at the hospital, but things reach a boiling point when Ayoola sets her sights on the object of Korede’s affections, as her next conquest and potential next victim.

Braithwaite keeps the book moving at a fast clip and the tension high, with very, very short chapters that move as quickly as Korede’s harried thoughts. The plot itself is not complicated, so this tension carries the novel. For a reader who doesn’t click with Korede, this could be a frustrating book, especially as Ayoola is an intentionally-frustrating character, but both of them get under your skin in a very engaging way. You sometimes want to yell at the page, but in the same exhilarating way that you yell at the screen for someone not to go into the haunted house. The haunted houses in My Sister, The Serial Killer are people, but they are just as filled with ghosts.

Would I Recommend It: Very much yes.

"She does not cry for me,” he says, his voice hardening. “She cries for her lost youth, her missed opportunities and her limited options. She does not cry for me, she cries for herself."

Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer

Look what I got today 👀 can't wait to watch Elvira ‼️

Currently reading: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

“It takes a whole lot longer to dispose of a body than to dispose of a soul...”

27/08/22

Serious question: will this selection carry me through a bank holiday weekend? Fingers crossed!

- CJ

Quotable – Oyinkan Braithwaite

Find out more about the author here

InstaFiction: Stories of Influencing and Instagram Fame

InstaFiction: Stories of Influencing and Instagram Fame

My favorite novels where influencing, living life in public, and Instagram clues play a major role in the storyline. In Jennifer Weiner’s Big Summer, when an awkward moment goes viral, Daphne turns her accidental fame into a side hustle as a popular plus-size Instagram influencer. This part is prime Jennifer Weiner fiction, about a chubby girl turning her setbacks into success. Daphne’s…

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Korede's sister Ayoola is many things: the favorite child, the beautiful one, possibly sociopathic. And now Ayoola's third boyfriend in a row is dead, stabbed through the heart with Ayoola's knife. Korede's practicality is the sisters' saving grace. She knows the best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, bleach, and more bleach), the best way to move a body (wrap it in sheets like a mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from posting pictures 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.

When I first found out about this book back in 2021, I had just started dipping my toes into the vast world of diverse novels. It was right up my alley: Black protags, murder, and the serial killer was a Black woman??? (Sign me up!) However, I was never able to read it until recently. I'd like to think my patience was well rewarded because I thoroughly enjoyed myself the whole time I was reading. It's a fast-paced novel that you can read in a day or two and it has a story that will stick with you, especially if you can relate to Korede in some way or another.

Pros:

The characters aren't black and white. They're morally gray and complex and because of that, it makes them feel more human. Seeing how Korede and Ayoola's familial trauma shaped them into the people they are present day, and how said trauma can make one overlook negative and potentially dangerous qualities of loved ones because of shared blood fleshed out the characters in a way that wouldn't normally be possible in such a fast-moving plot.

Braithwaite's masterful portrayal of the lived experience of a dark-skinned Black woman. Korede's constant experiences with colorism in her life leave her somewhat bitter and cynical, and at times resentful of her sister who is significantly lighter than she is—not because she envies Ayoola, but because of how she is viewed and treated in comparison to her.

Cons:

There is a lot of Yoruba in this book, and not much of it is translated. I found myself constantly having to stop in the middle of reading to look up translations of words or phrases (which was surprisingly difficult because I could barely find anything). This is probably just a nitpick on my part, but I would've personally appreciated a glossary somewhere in the book so I could understand what I was reading without having to constantly jump from book to Google/Wikipedia for the possibility of a translation.

All in all, this was a charming novel. It's not a "feel-good story" by any means, but it was certainly a dark and funny romp. If you are interested in reading it, as always, please check for trigger warnings here! Also, if you're interested in buying it for your bookshelf (and I ask that you support a Black author during BHM), you can use my new affiliate code to pick up a copy for yourself! I earn a tiny commission fee if you do use my code so I appreciate you in advance if you do. I'll be picking up a copy for my library as well because this is a book I'm gonna want to read over and over.

Rating: 💀💀💀💀