Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel is the first in our series of titles featured as part of #BLMBookFairies, highlighting amazing stories by black authors every day of October.
About BLM Book Fairies
This October, we are sharing incredible books, both fiction and non-fiction, by black writers as part of Black History Month. Check out #BLMBookFairies on instagram to see our collection of books being revealed one by one!
Book 1: My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Let’s start with the first page!
What a powerful, gripping first page! My Sister, the Serial Killer, if it doesn’t grip you with the title, will certainly draw you in from the very first line.
A book fairy review of My Sister, the Serial Killer
I was drawn in from the title and then, from the first sentence! The humour in the writing is apparent immediately, as well as the seriousness of the narrator’s situation. My Sister, the Serial Killer is a quick read, but it really packs a punch.
The tension in the story hinges on the serial killer, Ayoola, and her actions in her home city of Lagos, Nigeria – however I believe the more interesting character is naturally the narrator, her sister Korede. While Ayoola is dramatic and attention-grabbing from the outset, Korede’s character develops slowly over the course of the novel. Working out her character through the way she is viewed by others in the plot is most interesting, as her main focus seems to be her sister.
While the detailed and gory parts were of course tense and horrifying, I was delighted by the humour in the novel. It came unexpectedly and just when you need it the most – light relief in the most heavy parts of the plot.
I would have liked to learn more about the victims in the novel, to understand if there was a pattern in their characters. In short, I think this book is a refreshing take on the ‘thriller’ genre, if it fit in any specific genre at all!
The synopsis of the book:
A 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.
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.
Sharp as nails and full of deadpan wit, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s deliciously deadly debut is as fun as it is frightening.
Get your hands on this book!
Our London UK book fairies are hiding some copies around town as part of this activity to head to their instagram to see where.
Also! Our friends at Hive Books have copies of My Sister, the Serial Killer here and you can also find secondhand copies at World of Books.