This is a novel that holds humour within its pages, but not much hope. Here, superficiality and violence rule.
Sisters Korede and Ayoola are quite different. The elder sister, Korede, is a nurse, organised and ambitious, and hoping to find love with Tade, a doctor at the hospital where she works. Ayoola is young and beautiful, a clothing designer with an impressive Instagram following, but no discernibly profound feelings. Not much beyond meeting her own needs and desires. Oh, and her boyfriends keep meeting violent ends.
Ayoola insists that the deaths her romantic partners suffer are the results of self defence and misfortune. But when the number of fatalities connected to her sister continues to grow it becomes more difficult for Korede to believe this. And then, there is Ayoola's lack of emotions . . .
With a character like Ayoola at its core, a character concerned mostly with violence and surface stuff, the novel can easily take on themes of abuse that happens between men and women – in both directions – and the social-media-material-world of today. And, appropriately, these themes are explored with a knife sharp wit.
Through Korede's eyes, we see the aftermath of her younger sister's bloody violence, and then we watch Ayoola coolly exploit her victims' deaths for likes on Instagram. A naughty little comment on performative compassion, and the gap that exists between people behind screens and what they display in their feed.
For a long time, women in crime novels and thrillers have too often been little more than the pretty victim. Throughout fiction, female characters haven't moved much beyond the role of 'damsel in distress' – frankly, it speaks to quite a lack of imagination in some writers!
So, a novel with two women at the centre, two sisters, with the men as supporting characters, is refreshing. It's something new and exciting.
There are no damsels in distress here, but there are no heroes either. Yes, it's a novel without much hope, but it is a wickedly witty and fun read.
You can purchase a copy of My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite here.
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