3.75. This novel is reaching for so much and playing with such interesting stuff. It is immersive and vivid and sometimes genuinely cracked open the ontological framework my brain spends most of its time in in really interesting ways. I have some qualms about its success as a novel, as that specific kind of storytelling, that unit of art. To be fair, that is definitely one of the things Emezi deliberately deprioritized--I'm just not sure it's quite for me. I liked this a lot but wanted to like it more, maybe. ( )

Note: Overdrive e-book version omits a bunch of non-Latin letters if you don't let it set its own font. I learned this with [b:My Sister, the Serial Killer|38819868|My Sister, the Serial Killer|Oyinkan Braithwaite|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1523366732l/38819868._SY75_.jpg|60394238] and then promptly forgot, only remembering after I finished. Goddamnit.

3.5*, rounded up because I'm feeling generous today, but it really could go either way.

In the broad strokes I liked this---both a quick, engaging read and made some really interesting artistic choices. I'm less certain all those choices were successful. The most obvious one is use of foreshadowing: Emezi leans hard on "X had no way of knowing how big a mistake that would turn out to be!" in order to whip up an atmosphere of foreboding, perilousness, and tragedy. It gets noticeably repetitive, and sometimes the promised comeuppance doesn't actually happen (e.g. the story of the python in the bathroom...?). It also weirdly flattens some of the big emotional moments in Ada's life, where you already know a lot about what's going to happen (e.g. the end of Ada's marriage) by the time it actually happens, and then Emezi has to dribble in new details to actually make the pain/despair of the moment felt. (Vague spoilers: The student loans thing really got me. It's a concrete manifestation of the destruction and devastation on everyone in the blast radius that we're otherwise told about more distantly---say, breaking the older brother's heart. The loans are a distant way to put it, too, just more concrete than breaking boys' hearts. ...and around and around I go!)

I think one could make an argument for heavy foreshadowing as an intentional stylistic choice, since the story's being told by a chorus of narrators/heavily influenced by oral storytelling and folktales, but... IDK, you know? Bouncing around temporally this way took some of the sting out of the most brutal moments (there are a lot and they are quite explicit, just FYI), and I'm not sure if it was supposed to do that or no. ( )

A tough 4.5 stars. Only .5 less because of how it was like just an iota hard to get into in the beginning and some parts were sufficiently triggering. But overall I loved it ( )

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I borrowed a copy of this on audiobook from the library.

Thoughts: I listened to this book on audiobook and the narration was well done. This book was more on the poetic-literary side and the story feels very ambiguous at times. It was well done but has way more violence and sex than I was expecting. At times it feels like the whole story is revolving around Ada having violent sexual encounters with people. The premise is interesting but I felt like some of this was a bit over the top and repetitive.

The story focuses on Ada, a girl supposedly prayed into existence that has two gods sleeping in her soul. Ada uses various measures to keep the gods quiet and subdued (mostly self-harm) and that seems to work, allowing Ada to live a quiet life. That is until college where she is traumatically assaulted by her boyfriend. When this happens the god Asughara takes over Ada's body to protect Ada from the violence. At this point we hear from Asughara more, as Asughara enjoys having a body and likes throwing Ada into traumatic violent sexual situations. As Asughara starts to tear Ada's life apart, another god rears its head in the form of Saint Vincent. Saint Vincent is calming and loving but wants Ada to have a more androgynous body. Ada starts to realize these gods are ruining her life more than they are helping and struggles to figure out who she is.

This book has a heavy dose of magical realism to it. You are never quite sure if Ada is actually struggling with gods born into her soul (is it a fantasy book?) or if Ada is struggling with multiple personality disorder and this is how Ada envisions herself. Along the way, Ada stumbles into others who are not all human and have gods hanging around in their souls. Asughara struggles with being in Ada's body and constantly wants to go home to her godly siblings, but this would involve Ada dying.

Ada's compulsive and inconsistent actions take a heavy toll on the men she loves and on her family. We get small glimpses into how Ada is slowly tearing apart the people who try to support her through her madness. In the end this seems to be a story about self-identity and figuring out how to fight and accept all parts of yourself to live with this type of mental illness. Although, it could also be the story of a woman trying to survive the gods who have taken residence in her.

This is written in a very poetic and literary way. There is a lot of violence and sex here. The sex is not described in detail but is more viciously abstract with blunt harsh descriptions. At times I struggled to follow what was going on and see the point of it all. While I can say this was unique and had a very intriguing style to it, I can also say it wasn't something I enjoyed reading. It's pretty open ended, so I felt like the reader is subjected to a lot for very little closure.

My Summary (3.5/5): Overall this was a unique and visceral read that I respected but didn't really enjoy. The story is sexually very violent and fairly ambiguous. The reader is left uncertain as to whether or not Ada is struggling with a mental illness or an infestation of gods. I respect the poetic writing style and the intriguing magical realism feel, but the story was too violent, open-ended, and hard to follow for me. ( )

Sublime exploration of identity, inside and outside. ( )