Oyinkan Braithwaite | Nigeria

How far would you go in your loyalty to your sister? This title completely stumped me, and then I started reading and from the first paragraph I realized, “this shit is serious!”

Korede is a nurse in Nigeria and has made it her life’s mission to clean up and cover up the mess created by her younger sister Ayoola’s killing rampages of her boyfriends. That is until Korede’s crush falls for her sister and Korede now has to decide to whom she owes more loyalty, and although the saying goes that blood is thinker than water, Korede spends quite a few dark nights cleaning up blood and hauling dead bodies!

The sisters have a sort of love-suspicion-jealously-devotion type relationship where the expectation is that one will coming running to the aid of the other when needed. Ayoola is manipulative, even once accusing Korede of victim shaming her after Korede chastised her for yet another killing! What seems to bind them though, is that the sisters banded together against their very strict father and Korede has been Ayoola’s protector since childhood.

But their relationship is complicated. Ayoola is fair skin, pretty, attractive to every man she meets, while also being self-absorbed and selfish. Korede is caring, a neat freak, dark skin, and is expected by their mother to always have Ayoola’s best interest at heart. The intrigue in this book is not only Ayoola’s ability to kill her lovers then act the victim, it’s Korede’s devotion to making sure that she and Ayoola are never caught. Eventually Korede’s conscience starts to haunt her but when the moment truly comes for her to choose her loyalty, she doesn’t hesitate or waver in her decision.

Overall this is an entertaining, dark-yet-light read that looks at the bond between sisters, the way men view women, and the risks these sisters take to maintain their lives. I still have not found the answer as to why Ayoola kills these men and there is an allusion to something shady happening with their father. I’ll leave it to you to decide if you can figure it out!

“’We need to move the body,‘” I tell her.
‘Are you angry at me?’
Perhaps a normal person would be angry, but what I feel now is a pressing need to dispose of the body.”

-Oyinkan Braithwaite

First published: 2018
Instagram: @oyinbraithwaite
Website: https://oyinkanbraithwaite.com

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