Book Review: My Sister, the Serial Killer

My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The thing you have to know about this book is that is it a well-written tale with intriguingly described and mostly likeable chracters. Except for adding a few local quirks, the fact that it is set in Nigeria is mostly irrelevant.

But all of this is spoiled by an ending that is confusing and unsatisfying. I'll avoid getting into why I think that to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say that I turned the page and found out I had just read the final chapter and was moving on to the acknowledgements page. I thought I has missed something.

Before that, though, it was a quirky, fun book. Yes, the title is accurate. The opening chapter gets started right away on why that is. The narrator, Korede, make no bones about her sister's proclivities, or her own participation in covering up those crimes.

If it were non-fiction, it would be disturbing. But as fiction it works in a bizarre, if facetious manner. Korede probes her motives in excusing her sister's actions. She has mixed feelings, sometimes justifying, oftentimes condemning, her sister's murders, but seems unwilling to actually stop them. Why? Her sister has the privilege of being pretty.

The resemblance is there -- we share the same mouth, the same eyes -- but Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll, and I resemble a voodoo figurine.

Ayoola seems blithely unaware of the consequences of her actions. She neither plans her murders, nor thinks about them afterward. She fully expects Korede to solve any fall out. Korede feels compelled, even obligated, to protect her younger sister. She enjoys literally cleaning up Ayoola's messes and organizing the fixes.

So it's kind of the saga of two sisters: One responsible; one not, both accepting of their lot in life. Or it's about being the breaker or the fixer. Or maybe it's just a story about various ways to stab men and clean up afterwards, told in two-part harmony.

Whatever, it's an enjoyable read. Just don't expect any answers.

This Week in Books, 10th Ed. Black Authors

Black Authors White People Should Read

In the past few years I have made a concerted effort to read more female writers and writers of color. Last year, I started counting, and half of the authors I read were women, and more than a quarter were people of color. I am improving from the days of reading almost exclusively white male authors.

So in honor of Black History Month, I am recommending several writers of colors and their books, and what I have learned from them.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan: With this novel, set in the 19th Century, Edugyan gives us an extraordinary work filled with powerful and explosive  writing, Through the title character, Edugyan shows some of the true horrors of slavery, not just in the routine dehumanization of people of color, but in the lifelong impact it has on them, She shows the depravity of its systemic brutality. She shows how it allows white people to decry its savagery while simultaneously benefiting from it.


Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson: Woodson goes a step beyond the present, and shows how history and family and ancestory affect black lives today, She shows how bigotry and hate and violence in the past impacts the present and the future for black Americans. Bonus book: Read her Another Brooklyn, about groing up black in Brooklyn.


On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas: Thomas uses Bri, the smart, hip, talented, and ambitious protagonist, to show us what it's like to grow up as a 16-year-old black girl living in black ghetto in an otherwise white world.  Bri discoves how people judge her through lenses tinged with bias and outright bigotry. Her teachers condemn her as "aggressive." White parents claim her rap lyrics causeviolence. Many -- even her fans and neighbors -- see Bri as little more than a ghetto hoodrat.

My Name is Leon, by Kit De Waal: A British writer of Irish and Kittian descent, De Waal writes about a mixed-race child in England trying to find his way. After Leon's mother falls ill, social services take him and his younger, white brother, who is adopted almost immediately. Leon stays with his white foster mother. He learns the difficulties in being a black boy in white Britain while bonding with a group of black men from the West Indies.


Celestial Bodies, by Jokha Alharthi: It tells the stories of a multi-generational family growing up in Oman at a time of massive societal change in the Middle Eastern country. It's the first book originally wriitten in Arabic to win the Man Booker prize, It's mostly about three sisters trying to adjust to the changing culture, and it also explains the village of al-Awafi where they live. It does so through many voices, which reach a cohesive whole that is sad, but compelling and illuminating.