My Sister The Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Random House Audio - 2018
General Fiction / Satire
Audiobook
Narrated by Adepero Oduye
General Fiction / Satire
Audiobook
Narrated by Adepero Oduye
4 Hours, 15 Minutes
My Rating (out of 5)
⭐⭐
After hearing so much about this book, I was pretty hyped up about giving it a go, but ended up somewhat underwhelmed by it.
The title, while intriguing, pretty much sums up the whole story. Korede's younger sister Ayoola is the popular sister - the one everybody loves. She is prettier and more outgoing than Korede, but she has a nasty habit of killing her boyfriends. Korede - the ever faithful older sister, helps Ayoola hide the evidence of her dark side. One day the man that Korede desires meets Ayoola, and naturally he falls for her. Now Korede must decide whether to protect her sister, or her love interest.
This book is categorized as satire, but while it does have its moments, I really did not find it particularly funny. The story wasn't horrible (if it had been I would have DNF'd it), it was simply underwhelming for me. The story chugged along at a 3 star rating, but then the ending fell a bit flat for me as well.
Narration was provided by Adepero Oduye. Her voice and tone were pleasant enough, and her range of emotion was good. I did feel though, that a production choice was made to read the much of the text with "standard North American" pronunciation, while many specific words and names were pronounced with a definite Nigerian accent (which makes sense given that the story is set in Lagos); but the flip-flopping between the extremes in accents left the audio version feeling a little "clunky", leaving me to think this book would be better in print or if all of the book had been narrated with at least some Nigerian accent to make the narration flow better and come across as smoother.
The title, while intriguing, pretty much sums up the whole story. Korede's younger sister Ayoola is the popular sister - the one everybody loves. She is prettier and more outgoing than Korede, but she has a nasty habit of killing her boyfriends. Korede - the ever faithful older sister, helps Ayoola hide the evidence of her dark side. One day the man that Korede desires meets Ayoola, and naturally he falls for her. Now Korede must decide whether to protect her sister, or her love interest.
This book is categorized as satire, but while it does have its moments, I really did not find it particularly funny. The story wasn't horrible (if it had been I would have DNF'd it), it was simply underwhelming for me. The story chugged along at a 3 star rating, but then the ending fell a bit flat for me as well.
Narration was provided by Adepero Oduye. Her voice and tone were pleasant enough, and her range of emotion was good. I did feel though, that a production choice was made to read the much of the text with "standard North American" pronunciation, while many specific words and names were pronounced with a definite Nigerian accent (which makes sense given that the story is set in Lagos); but the flip-flopping between the extremes in accents left the audio version feeling a little "clunky", leaving me to think this book would be better in print or if all of the book had been narrated with at least some Nigerian accent to make the narration flow better and come across as smoother.
Happy Reading,
Christine
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