My Sister, the Serial Killer

I loved My Sister, The Serial Killer! Braithwaite's sharp, snappy prose creates vivid atmospheric scenes in just a couple of sentences and I could clearly imagine all her characters from obsessively cleaning Korede to perpetually dozing Yinka. For such a dark story - we now have Nigerian Noir to complete with Scandi Noir - My Sister, The Serial Killer is very funny. The combination of Braithwaite's entertaining humour and short chapters meant that this novel zipped past and I was disappointed to realise I had finished it in just a few hours. I could have happily spent longer with Korede and her sister Ayoola.

Blithe serial killer Ayoola is a fascinating invention and I will be very surprised if her story doesn't reappear as a film version within the next few years. Seemingly unaware of the implications of her actions and incapable of taking responsibility, she flits from one man to the next, always relying on her beauty to save the day. And on her sister of course. Korede and Ayoola are strikingly different physically but I felt both were equally as damaged by the domestic abuse they witnessed and experienced in childhood. Ayoola might be the actual murderer, but is Korede any less culpable for continuing to facilitate her sister's actions. Obviously enabling a sibling to repeatedly commit murder is wrong, but where should the line be drawn between protecting one's family from the world and protecting the world from one's family?

I'm delighted to have discovered Oyinkan Braithwaite. I'd recommend My Sister The Serial Killer to a wide readership and look forward to reading more of her storytelling in the future.

Ich mochte das Setting ganz gerne und wollte natürlich wissen, wie es weitergeht mit den zwei Schwesten. Leider haben mich zwei Sachen stark gestört, wie so ein durchgehendes, leises Kratzen von Fingernägeln auf Tafel in Hintergrund des Hörbuchs:

1. Oh my goth ist dieses Universum cis und hetig. Ich kann mich einfach nicht auf Geschichten in Universen einlassen, wo alle hetero sind, alle Frauen sich „ganz natürlich“ in Frauenrollenklischees verirren und die ganze Zeit über Typen nachdenken, ohne jede Reflektion (die über „Typen wollen immer nur das eine“ hinaus geht). Bizarr, so hetige Parallelwelten.

2. Ich fand das Hadern der Erzählerin, der klugen aber nicht hübschen der beiden Schwester, eigentlich ganz gut und relatable. Und ich find es ja auch gut, wenn die Protagonist_innen, mit denen wir uns indentifizieren als Lesende, nicht perfekt sondern sogar hypokritisch (wie heißt n das auf Deutsch?) sind. Aaaaaber dieser ganze krasse Lookismus die ganze verdammte Zeit, das war zermürbend :/. Da wusste ich dann irgendwann nicht mal mehr, ob die Autorin das noch mit Absicht machte oder es ihr nicht mehr auffiel.

Ansonsten blieben die Charaktere leider bis auf main chara recht flach und leblos und naja, die origin story der beiden Schwestern war wirklich ausgelutscht, auch sonst waren viele altbekannte Tropes dabei und die Nebencharaktere hatten nicht viel zu bieten. Fand es letztlich ganz gut, dass die Story nicht noch länger ausgewalzt worden war. Aber ok als Unterhaltung beim Putzen und Packen.

This was a fun little book, with a killer title (see what I did there?). It tells the story of a pair of sisters, one of whom is a real looker and tends to kill her lovers, while the other is the older sister who is called in to clean up the mess. The older sister works as the head nurse in a hospital, with her eyes on a handsome single doctor, but when her sister begins to notice him, things get complicated in a hurry.

It is a very short book - 226 pages but even the hard cover is barely bigger than a paperback in dimensions. The story unfolds over just a few weeks but it is gloriously well written from the point of view of the older sister, who is both jealous and protective of her gorgeous younger sister, who lives a life completely at ease, while the older sister is torn by anxieties. It is set in Lagos, Nigeria, so a pretty exotic setting, even if it doesn't play too much in the story.

Plenty of descriptions of local food, dress and customs make for some work on the Internet. which was fun. And the story had both humor and pathos as it rolled right along. I really enjoyed it and would like to read more from Ms. Braithwaite. I just noticed that Kindle "Hush" book I currently have queued up, Treasure, is actually by her. I will have to get into that pronto!

Fast paced, attention grabbing read. I appreciate the fact that the title leads you to believe this will be a crime novel when in fact it isn’t really about that at all. For the majority of the book, I felt that all of the characters were too one-dimensional. One sister, the ugly duckling with integrity and a moral compass, the other one the opposite—beautiful and psychopathic. However, in the end, the author does offer the main character a bit more complexity and you wonder if she, the “good” sister, might be a little evil, too.

The social critiques offered in this book are pretty much as unnuanced as the characters: people are shallow; women are often seen as mere accessories, appreciated only for their looks and nothing else; and most men suck—even the ones that seem cool at first. I tend to agree with most of these assessments to some extent, so it didn’t bother me and all in all, I was entertained by this read.

"Whoa-oh here she comes. Watch out boy she'll chew you up. Whoa-oh here she comes. She's a Maneater!"

This novel is so clean you can catch a whiff of Korede's bleach rising from its pages. It is so clean, in fact, the premise and storyline cut across each chapter quickly, never pausing for very much commentary. The relationships are provocative, the protagonist's throughline tracks neatly, but the content is limited by her binary thinking. This may have been the point (which is interesting) but by choosing a spartan prose style the text isn't given enough heft to compensate. Braithwaite's central questions do not feel very profound. The result is a novel that feels like a very good pilot episode of a larger television series and not a complete and satisfying story.

By the way, if this were a forthcoming series on, say, HBO instead of, say, Lovecraft Country, I would be very excited about it.