Korede, a plain-looking nurse obsessed with cleaning, has a gorgeous little sister, Ayoola, who’s a fashionista/social media maven - and who also kills her many suitors! And then Ayoola captures the attention of Korede’s cute doctor crush, Tade. Will Korede allow Tade to become another corpse at the hands of her sister or will this be the line she finally draws and stops the murdering once and for all?
So Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, is, for some reason, a bestseller and award-nominated novel - even though it’s pretty bad! I shouldn’t be surprised - crapness in general tends to be popular - but I still do wonder what people are seeing in this one.
It’s not a particularly convincing crime story. Ayoola somehow manages to murder man after man and get away with it simply because Korede cleans up the death scenes so impeccably?? Neither have special training, either in forensics or killing, they’re rank amateurs, and the police interview them once(!) before giving up. So… I guess, assuming this is an accurate picture of the staggeringly incompetent Nigerian police force, if you’re looking to murder someone and get away with it, head to Lagos!
So if it’s not a strong crime story, that might be because of a satirical purpose - Braithwaite is heightening the reality to make some kind of social comment? That might explain the critical acclaim too. But for the life of me I don’t know what commentary is being made or what is being satirised and why. Good-looking people get away with murder because everyone’s shallow? Eh, probably not. And if it is, what a dumb thing to write a novel about (it’s not true either). As for motivation, apparently having an abusive father is sort of the reason - huh?! Another questionable aspect of this increasingly silly story.
Forgetting that it’s a failed crime story and a failed satire, it’s also just a failed contemporary drama, in that it’s completely uninteresting too, despite the provocative title/angle. Neither Korede or Ayoola undergo a character arc - they’re the same as they started as they end - with no surprising twists along the way. Korede is surprisingly passive despite seemingly having her head screwed on right and knows what her sister is doing is wrong. Ayoola for her part is the dullest sociopath (if that is what she is) committed to paper who acts the air-headed bimbo the entire novel - honestly, somebody this dumb should’ve been caught by even a half-decent copper.
Braithwaite introduces tantalising elements like the coma man, whom Korede confides in, and then who awakens remembering all that she told him while he was unconscious - and then does nothing with that angle either. This aspect of the novel could’ve been excised completely without any effect on the story. Nothing happens in this book! Ayoola murders three men, possibly five, and attempts to kill number six, always off page, but she gets away with it each time effortlessly. I’m amazed how nothing comes out of such dramatic material - the consequences each time are an indifferent shrug by all involved. Which is how I wound up feeling about the novel long before the end, the ending of which was especially weak and extremely underwhelming.
It is a surprisingly well-written novel for a debut, and I was curious to see what would happen to the characters - would the good-looking doctor meet a fatal end, would Ayoola face justice? - so Braithwaite admittedly hooked me to a degree. I also discovered that “maga” in Yoruba means “a fool who has been taken advantage of”, which was an amusing detail to note.
But most of the novel was disappointingly dull considering the provocative title and behaviour of one of the characters. Braithwaite is unable to either realise any excitement or tension on a story level or convey a deeper message (assuming there is one) about, er, women… or something? My Sister, the Serial Killer didn’t do anything for me - a pointless, unimpressive and quite forgettable novel. A triumph of marketing over quality!
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