“Three, and they label you a serial killer.”

My Sister, the Serial Killer tells the tale of a long-suffering elder sister, Korede, pressed upon to help her sibling, who has an unfortunate proclivity to murder her boyfriends, dispose of her victims’ bodies. Good thing Korede has the requisite skills — she’s a nurse who’s skilled at disinfecting blood stains. No one else, especially not their mother, suspects the truth (even though it is a rather fishy pattern, methinks, if so many of your boyfriends end up dead): Ayoola is the darling of the family, with drop-dead (ha ha) gorgeous looks to boot, automatically making her innocent of any crime known to humanity. Burdened with a troublesome conscience, Korede would have been fine continuing to unload her heart to a comatose patient — until Ayoola sets her lovelorn sights on her long-time crush, doctor at the hospital she works at, Tade.

This was such a fun, snappy read, told in such a deadpan manner with such relevance to our Instagram times you’d be hard-pressed to put this down once you start. I particularly admire the way Braithwaite pulls off that rapid-fire pacing, with short dialogue-lined segments that zip across time and place yet manage to be sprinkled with sarcasm. It also retains that specificity to culture and place (it’s set in Lagos), what with the speech rhythms, the code-switching Korede resorts to with English in different situations, the casual brushstrokes of various customs, the food names, etc, while still obviously situated in a city carried along by the same globalized forces as the rest of the world.

But what ultimately makes this read more than your usual holiday paperback is the depiction of the sisterly dynamics between Korede and Ayoola. Despite wanting to strangle your sister and live a good and peaceful life forever after, what with her privileged status in your mother’s eyes, her despicableness in targeting your one and only crush, and all the moral justification in Nigeria backing you up, the bond between the sisters goes exasperatingly deeper than all these reasons. And so you stick with her through thick and thin (bodies). Should I be thankful my own younger sister is a law-abiding citizen? Here’s to you, sis.

Rating: 4/5

— My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite, 2018)