Friday, February 4, 2022

My Sister, the Serial Killer

Last week, I picked up a book in English at the German library, seeing as how the English Library is celebrating one year of closure, thanks to the former SDP mayor selling off the building known as Die Brücke because he got the town into debt when I got the Tour de France to start from here, just to make himself look big. Unfortunately, it rained heavily, barely anyone came to watch it and the debts added up. Bastard.

Anyway, the book that fell into my hand was My Sister, the Serial Killer by young Nigerian writer Oyinkan BraithwaiteI had heard of the book when it first came out  in 20218, so I thought I'd take a chance on it.



Well, it drew me in. Short, snappy chapters. First-person narrative. The story zips along. And besides the story behind the title, there's also a bit of a mystery that explains why Ayoola does what she does.

What interested me most was the relationship between the two sisters: Korede, the older one, who works as a nurse and is calm and conscientious; and Ayoola, the younger one, who has a habit of killing any man who gets too close to her.

What I could identify with was the unfairness of the way the two sisters were treated by their mother and others. Ayoola is always getting away with things, just because she's the younger of the two. Nothing is ever her fault. She is always excused - because she is so pretty, whereas Korede is plain and so not worth a second glance.

When Korede tells the truth to someone in order to protect him from her sister, she is seen as the evil, nasty sister. When she tells the people around her that her sister is not a good person, she's seen as spiteful and people keep asking her how she can be so horrible to her nice, pretty little sister. 

I know just how Korede feels, so reading this was rather cathartic. It's just a shame that the story has the same kind of ending as A Long Way Down: no ending at all really. More of a resignation that things will just continue as usual. Poor Korede.

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