Back Jacket Hack-Job: My Sister, the Serial Killer

Hey all! I'm going to do a hack job on a book that has a lot of hacking in it. With a knife! For those who do not know the shtick, we describe a book we love poorly. As if we're writing horrendous backcover copy. You know when you've just finished a great read and you try to summarize it to a friend, but you babble on and on until finally you say something like this: You need to read it yourself. I'm not doing it justice? So that is this in blog post form.

I must preface this post by saying that I really loved this book. It was campy and darkly humorous and right up my alley. And non-Western. It's set in Nigeria. And for this lameoid American, the setting and cultural norms made the narrative that much more intriguing. Also Braithwaite paints characters like Picasso. Anyway, here goes...

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Two sisters. Karede who is the responsible, neat-freak, older sister and Ayoola, the hot, fashion-forward, sociopath younger sister. And they live with their mom. Their dad is dead (for good reason--he was terrible).

Karede is a no-nonsense nurse and Ayoola is a freaking murderer. No joke. I'm not giving away spoilers, it's in the title. And who does Ayoola call when she needs help disposing of a body? Karede. That's right. Which Karede does because she feels a responsibility toward Ayoola.
[Jake Peralta voice: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.]

Karede is an enabler which she feels bad about. And Ayoola has no remorse. She's ready to upload selfies to Instagram when the blood stain hasn't come clean from her dress. Sh*t hits the fan when Karede's number one crush takes an interest in Ayoola. Karede knows what happens to men who date Ayoola. They don't often get a second date, if you know what I mean. Karede has to make a choice. Save her man or save her sister. (Justice scales) What does she do?

I just learned that this book has been optioned for the screen and holy hell, I hope it gets made. Because I am here for it. I am here for all of it.

I'm obviously not doing the story justice so go read it for yourself.