My Sister, the Serial Killer

This book was a very quick read and I enjoyed it a lot! I kept laughing out loud while reading it and had to quote passages to my mom when she would ask what was so funny.

It's full of dark humour, but still reads light despite the tragic circumstances (no spoilers here, the title says it all). While reading you might feel irritation or even anger at the carelessness, childishness and egoism of the two sisters. Yet you still end up with a fuzzy warm feeling towards them (at least I did). Love concurs all, especially when it's the unconditional kind reserved for closest family members.

Just disturbing enough to be intriguing without being too relentlessly dark. The characters are richly drawn and weirdly sympathetic, and the setting is really interesting - the titular sisters are from a once-wealthy family in Lagos, now running lower on funds, but still living in their fancy (if rundown) compound and still experiencing echoes of their former life when their father was alive.

I actually listened to the Audible version, and I wasn't thrilled with the reader. Despite her facility with accents and dialects, she winds up choosing weird, jarring emphasis and pacing often enough that it was distracting.

This was really good, but also quite short! I don't think it needed to be longer mind you, it's just that if you're looking for a longer story this ain't it.

I listened to the audio book and I'd really recommend that format, the narration was excellent.

I was a little let down by the conclusion. It made sense but I was hoping for a different outcome. That's subjective though, and I'd love to hear what other people think.

Great book club pick!

The story is not merely a thriller about a serial killer, although murder does happen. I saw it also as a family drama with extremes of abuse, infidelity, and sibling rivalry. There's even a coma relationship, making it almost soapy, if the writing wasn't so fine tuned.

I believe the reader is supposed to find that the serial killer in question was “made” not born. Both sisters are victims of an oppressively patriarchal environment, an abusive father, and a weak mother who shuts down (with help from Mr. tranquilizer) when things become too much. In other words, you kind of feel bad for the sisters despite the fact that what they're doing is very wrong. (Moral ambiguity as another reviewer said.)

For such a short and deceptively simple book, there's a lot going on in these pages.

Ikke fantastisk, ikke så verst, forstår de som er skuffa, forstår de som liker den. Jeg heller mot de siste, og hovedgrunnen til det er at det er en roman (thriller, krim) fra Afrika, nærmere bestemt Lagos i Nigeria som er en roman uten pretensjoner om å fortelle “den unike afrikanske opplevelsen”. Nei, det er historien i seg selv som fenger, og den lett medrivende og enkle måten å skrive på som uten å male ut noe som helst lett gir en følelse av noe genuint lagosiansk. I tillegg er det ganske morsomt. Men stor verdenslitteratur på Booker-nivå? Hmmm....

Those short chapters really help you fly through this book. I really enjoyed this one and loved the character study. You can look at the story from so many different angles and perspectives to create a totally different type of experience. I really liked it! I wish certain things had occurred on the page, but other than that it was a win for me.

4.5 rounded up

Interesting read, it felt like following a secondary character trying and failing to have its moment as the main one. I've seen mentions of the humor in that book, but I didn't find it humorous, not really, don't get me wrong there were moments that were funny but I didn't think humor was one of the stand out things about it.