Cannonball Read 12

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

> FAQ Home
> Tag: Nigeria

Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and write the damned review

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta

by Leave a Comment

I’ve put off this review far too long, and though I could just skip it, I don’t want to punk out when the reviewing gets tough. I really wanted to like Chinelo Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees, as it came highly recommended and was written by an African lesbian, a voice I haven’t heard before, but this book really didn’t work for me. That said, I didn’t dislike it enough to hate-review it, so I’m stuck in a kind of mushy middle of blah. Ijeoma […]

Nobody fights you like your own sister; nobody else knows the most vulnerable parts of you and will aim for them without mercy.

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

by 2 Comments

Reviews for this one kept popping up following its November 2018 publication. I’m a bit squeamish and while I like mystery books I don’t read horror. Pluiedenovembre assured me that this one wasn’t scary or gory so I requested it from the library. Like ASKReviews mentioned in her review of this book a few days ago, it is also a very quick read. The chapters are short and crisp, with rapid fire information. Our point of view character is Korede, a nurse in one of […]

Expectations Mostly Met

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

by Leave a Comment

Movies and books share many obvious differences but what’s especially difficult for the reader versus the cinephile is there aren’t nearly as many movies as there are books. You’d have to practically live under a rock not to know about films like Aquaman and Vice premiering close to or on Christmas, and even if you want to find info non-blockbuster popular indy types like The Favourite, the internet makes that relatively easy. Whereas with books, there are thousands (millions?) that get released yearly throughout a wide range of genres and if […]

I am now a Tade Thompson fanboy

Rosewater by Tade Thompson

by Leave a Comment

The Kinokuniya bookstore above Shinjuku Station in Tokyo has become one of my favorite stores for its excellent selection of English-language books. They have a really good sci-fi/fantasy section, and on a recent visit, they had a whole rack dedicated to recent award winners where I noticed the winner of a new award for African speculative fiction — the Nommo Award — and was intrigued enough to buy a copy.  And let me just say that if there’s a better science fiction book this year […]

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

My Sister, the Serial Killer: A Novel by Oyinkan Braithwaite

by 5 Comments

My Sister, the Serial Killer is the debut novel from Nigerian writer Oyinkan Braithwaite, and it packs a real punch! In under 300 pages, Braithwaite draws the reader into a fascinating story of Korede, our narrator, who finds herself repeatedly having to clean up her younger sister Ayoola’s messes. And those messes are the murders of her boyfriends, three and counting. The novel is something of a thriller, as we wait to see if Ayoola will kill again and if the sisters will escape the […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay