My Sister, the Serial Killer: The Sunday Times Bestseller

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.

This is quite a startling book in many ways, it is less about the actual act of murder but how your relationships, career and life change when you allow a murderer in to your life. In Korede's case she does not allow a murderer in to her life, Ayoolah is thrust in to her life by nature and nurture makes her in to a harsher copy of their father. The familial bond is strong and when Ayoolah first commits murder Korede protects her and helps destroy the evidence, perhaps this is because she believes the self defence explanation her sister gives, maybe it goes deeper than that. I loved the juxtaposition between Korede's career as a nurse in a large hospital - a career where she is sworn to protect and help people and then her home life of second to her beautiful sister and protector of her as well as her inferior. There is also a wonderful glimpse in to the culture of traditional Lagos - where appearances always seem set to deceive as everyone puts their bast face forward to the world. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the memorial for their dead father, neither the sisters or their mother really want to be there but they don their matching family dress and go through with it all, for respectability's sake. From the early chapters you could be forgiven for thinking this was going to be a police procedural with the sister's facing the full might of the law. This is definitely not what you get, what you get is actually a touching story of family. A very disfunctional father whose patriarch has skewed the world so far that it has irrevocably altered his daughter's mores. Narrated by Korede we only ever really see her view of the circumstances surrounding each event but it is a full and unflinching vision. A great first novel that is pretty compulsive reading. THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED VIA THE PIGEONHOLE.

Every page of this book captured and intrigued me as a reader. I am just sorry it ended so quickly I wanted to know more about each character, I want to continue to journey with them in this amazing story so well written by the author. All I will add is that I am ready to watch this on the big screen!!!