Books › My sister, the serial killer
My sister, the serial killer
266 pages
A razor-sharp, darkly hilarious exploration of toxic sibling loyalty and the exhausting logistics of covering up murder.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like watching a slow-motion car crash while someone makes dry, sarcastic commentary in your ear. It is a ruthlessly efficient, bite-sized read that flies by in a blur of bleach, blood, and bitter resentment. The atmosphere is steeped in the sweltering, vibrant energy of Lagos, but filtered through a chillingly detached, pragmatic lens. You are trapped in the claustrophobic headspace of a woman exhausted by the burden of unconditional family loyalty, forced to weigh morality against the inescapable pull of sisterhood. The prose is sharp as a scalpel, stripping away any melodrama to leave behind a pitch-black comedy of manners. It will absolutely delight readers who crave deeply compelling, morally gray narrators and stories that find humor in the darkest, most uncomfortable corners of human obligation.
- Mood
- tense
- claustrophobic
- darkly vibrant
- Tone
- deadpan
- wry
- cynical
- darkly comic
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- toxic family dynamics · the burden of loyalty · sibling rivalry · complicity · the halo effect of beauty
- The writing
- Sharp, sparse, and ruthlessly efficient, delivered in bite-sized, punchy chapters.
- The arc
- Moves from weary, resentful complicity to a chilling, inevitable acceptance of blood ties over morality.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love pitch-black humor, messy sibling dynamics, and pragmatic antiheroines who clean up crime scenes with bleach and exasperation.
Content notes
- murder
- blood and gore
- past domestic abuse
- toxic relationships
- gaslighting
About the book
"Satire meets slasher in this 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. A kind, handsome doctor at the hospital where Korede works is the bright spot in her life. She dreams of the day when he will realize they're perfect for each other. But one day Ayoola shows up to the hospital uninvited and he takes notice. When he asks Korede for Ayoola's phone number, she must reckon with what her sister has become and what she will do about it. Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite has written a deliciously deadly debut that's as fun as it is frightening"--
"Slasher meets satire, in this darkly comic novel set in Nigeria about a woman whose younger sister has a very inconvenient habit of killing her boyfriends"--
Description from Open Library.
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