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.

I remember Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel, My Sister, the Serial Killer being all over Bookstagram when it was released. That iconic cover & title just really grabbed your eye.

I read crime fiction almost exclusively for a good chunk of my twenties, but it’s not something I’ve paid a great deal of attention to over the last little while. But I’ve been really craving the occasional crime/thriller novel lately, and this book…this book is fucking electric from the first page, and I wouldn’t hesitate even a second to put this on my list of all-time favorite crime novels.

I FUCKING LOVED THIS ONE, OMG!!

Set in Nigeria, this is the story of two sisters, Korede and Ayoola. Korede is the older sister…she’s a nurse, she’s very serious & responsible, she’s on an upward trajectory at work. Her younger sister Ayoola is “the popular one,” beautiful, lusted after by men, and also…a serial killer?

The book is not set up as a whodunnit or anything like that. Like, Ayoola has straight up murdered several men. And Korede is helping to cover for her. So…why? Why is Korede risking everything to help Ayoola?

Well, because they’re sisters. They have this incredibly intense bond that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. And it’s also easy to see that even Korede can fall under Ayoola’s spell, believing at first that these men’s deaths were tragic accidents.

This book also incorporates social media in an incredibly organic way. Ayoola is someone with a large social media following, and Korede has to monitor Ayoola’s activity in the wake of these murders. So while Ayoola is craving the attention & interaction from social media, Korede is busy trying to help keep up the narrative that Ayoola is actually grieving. Which…she really isn’t.

There’s something almost…decadent about this book. Devious, even. It’s fun & crazy dark all at once, and also can be sneaky emotional & gut-wrenching, particularly where Korede & Ayoola’s childhood is concerned.

My Sister, the Serial Killer is legit one of the most razor-sharp books I’ve ever read. The short chapters & near-frenetic pacing make this something to DEVOUR in one or two sittings. I don’t often throw around sentiments like this, but if My Sister, the Serial Killer is not your crime fiction shelf, then your crime fiction shelf is missing an actual classic of the genre. I know mine was.