Will I love My Sister, the Serial Killer?

Murder mysteries are not usually my thing, but I had a chance to see this author, Oyinkan Braithwaite, speak at an event, and really enjoyed her talk, so I decided to dive in. The book is a little gory, but overall, I found it both fun and funny. The absurd plot about the serial killer behavior proved a great way to explore love and obligation among family, particularly sisters.

I have a sister—a twin, actually—and I would do anything for her.

But if she murdered someone… would I cover it up? I couldn’t stop asking myself that while reading this, even as I found myself laughing at how effortlessly funny it is. Ayoola’s total indifference is what hooked me—she doesn’t question herself, doesn’t spiral, she just acts, and there’s something unsettlingly magnetic about that.

And Korede, fully aware and still complicit, pushed me to think about how far love can stretch before it turns into something else entirely. It’s bright, biting, and way more layered than it first appears,… show more.

Sometimes I just need a light, fun book. The preposterousness of the title grabbed me, and the scenes and characters were similarly over-the-top. But it was thought-provoking throughout. What would we do if we had such a sister? How far would we go to protect her? How are we changed by helping? These are the sorts of real questions that made shows like "Ozark" and "The Wire" so engaging.

Why people lie is often as interesting as the lie itself for me. This book lays this out as Korede finds herself being a protective big sister to the beautiful Ayoola, a woman with an unfortunate hobby of bumping off men she dates. Despite the darkness of the subject matter, it’s a story full of humor as Korede finds herself telling lie after lie and getting in way over her head to cover up her sister’s murders.

I’ve got two sisters (none of us serial killers!), and it’s funny how much of this tale is relatable! It’s fresh and sharp,… show more.

It’s always refreshing to read portrayals of unconventional female relationships, something I’m particularly interested in when writing my own novels. Because our relationships are rarely straightforward or predictable, are they?

As the title suggests, the relationship between Korede and her serial killer sister, Ayoola, is far from conventional…and while the story delves into some dark and gruesome places, it is a thriller that had me laughing as much as covering my eyes in horror. This accomplished debut goes firmly on my ‘couldn’t put it down’ list – it’s warm, funny, and page-turningly good!

Not a situation I’d find myself in. Neither, I hope, will you. Korede’s problem in this quirky book is dark and unusual: having to protect a sister who kills her suitors.

The plot goes from unpredictable to weird. The older sister, a nurse committed to saving lives, has to choose between her code of ethics and her love for her pretty, precocious sister, who keeps killing her boyfriends.

A story this morbid, narrated with straight-faced, deadpan humour, has made this book one of my picks.

There’s so much I love about this book: the setting of Lagos, Nigeria, the vignette-style chapters that toggle between poetic insights of the titular sisters, a crime novel unlike any that I’ve read, and the questions it asks about how far you’ll go to protect the people you love.

This book had me riveted, turning pages as fast as I could. Despite being dark, it also made me laugh—which is a really tough combination to pull off! I gulped it down in about two sittings—the story had me that hooked.

This novel follows Ayoola, a beautiful murderer, and her put-upon sister, Korede, who helps clean up her crime scenes. Korede is loyal to a fault, willing to help cover up her sister’s crimes, but what makes the relationship feel authentic and lived-in is the way petty resentment boils around minor slights and the perpetual issue of the sisters’ disparate beauty. 7

The book is a slender, efficient, and funny look at the psychology of sisterhood that happens to take the form of a thriller.

The title and all the glowing reviews made me pick this book up, but the sisters Korene and Ayoola kept me reading. This book actually made me wonder exactly how far I’d go for one of my sisters. It also made me think about how much many women give up to be the caretakers (as Korene the nurse is), especially of the men in our lives. Korene not only figuratively has to clean up after her little sister, she has to literally don plastic gloves and grab the bleach. Is it horrible to think a little Ayoola-style “self-defense” would make… show more.

This book is stunning because it’s so original. The narrator is the sister of a woman who regularly falls for the wrong man and then kills him when she finds out. Not only that, but she expects her sister to help her clean up the murder scene. It’s superficially unbelievable, but Braithwaite’s brilliance makes it entirely believable because of the family’s background and the suffocatingly close bond between the two sisters. True, the Nigerian police miss a few points that a US police detective would pick up, but that’s how they operate. Some great thrillers are coming out of Nigeria… show more.