This is a book that sneaks up on you. You can summarize it in a sentence: Older sister Korede (our narrator) keeps getting called in to clean up after little sister Ayoola's unfortunate habit of killing her boyfriends and it's really starting to mess with Korede's conscience, her uber-tidy life, and her long-standing crush. It's a fast read, which I wasn't sad about — I have a hard time hanging out with unlikable characters for too long — and I wasn't sure what I thought of it immediately after I finished. I'm still not sure what I think about it, but I'm sure that the more I think about it, the more interesting it gets.

While the subject matter is dark, the tone and structure are light, almost disassociative, which, given the narrator, is kind of brilliant. I didn't find it funny, but there is a dark, situational humor to it (and some astute, cutting commentary). I also wouldn't call it a mystery or a thriller, but it is page-turner. To me, it's straight contemporary fiction that explores themes of disconnection (family, society, self), misogyny and female empowerment, hierarchies of loyalty, legacies of trauma, and more.

Content note: murder, child abuse, stealing, lying, cheating, police corruption, misogyny, sibling rivalry and yin-yang trope, femme fatale trope, possibly unreliable narrator, colorism, classism