The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim 👀🥢

I ate this up. I can’t believe this is a debut. The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim will be published on June 25, 2024. The following is an unbiased spoiler-free review of the Netgalley advance copy.

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“Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean American perspective.” https://www.monika-kim.com/

About The Book 📚

Title: The Eyes Are the Best Part

Author: Monika Kim

Publication Date: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books, Erewhon Books

Genre: Adult, Horror, Multicultural

Pages: 288

Setting: Los Angeles

Content Warnings: cannibalism, body horror, gore, murder, racism, misogyny, stalking, infidelity, self-harm, xenophobia

About The Author

“Monika graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a B.A. in Communication. Since 2016, she has been working for an environmental agency based in Southern California. In her current role, Monika’s work is focused on environmental justice and assisting underserved communities through outreach and youth education programs. Monika is passionate about the environment and climate justice. Through her books, she seeks to raise awareness of the Asian American experience as well as of feminist issues. In her free time, Monika likes to try new foods, read, play video games, travel, and take pictures.

Monika is a second-generation Korean American living in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, where she resides with her family and her tuxedo cat, Velvet. She learned about eating fish eyes and other Korean superstitions from her mother, who immigrated to California from Seoul in 1985.” https://www.monika-kim.com/about

My Review

› Let’s talk about this cover. The eyeball shoved onto a chopstick is perfect for this book. You can even see the cartilage and blood. Oh yes. This cover tells you that you’re in for a wild ride with The Eyes are the Best Part.

› “Umma tells me that the eyes are the best part.”

› Ji-won’s Umma (mother) explains to her daughters that eating the eyes of a fish will bring good luck. The trio have an awkward relationship, strained after Ji-won’s father abandoned them. The first part of The Eyes Are the Best Part felt like a domestic drama about her mother’s depression, Ji-won’s struggle during her first year of college, and her changing relationship with her fifteen-year-old sister. After a falling out with her high school friends, Ji-won is happy to meet Geoffrey and Alexis at college. One day, Ji-won’s mother brings home her new boyfriend George. He’s an obnoxious white man who is racist, sexist, and has a fetish for Asian women. Ji-won starts having terrifying nightmares about eyeballs and can’t stop thinking about George’s beautiful blue eyes…and how much she wants to eat them. 👀 Ji-won slowly loses her mind while navigating new friendships, trying to keep her family together, and fighting violent urges.

“I’m certain that blue eyes would taste amazing, much better than brown ones. Especially George’s eyes.”

› It was interesting to learn more about another culture and I could relate to the fish-eyeball eating, as I saw many people do that while growing up in Newfoundland & Labrador. The story mentions “the four pillars of destiny” which is a Chinese astrological practice. Googling it sent me down a rabbit hole.

› Ji-won is a well-developed character. Some of the other characters felt a little cookie-cutter, but I didn’t care – I felt invested in all of their relationships. The tension builds steadily and we get excellent descriptions of setting and mood. I love a horror novel that has high-quality writing and authentic dialogue. The pace was perfect for me. I didn’t want to put it down. There are gross scenes, but they don’t go on forever. The ending felt a little rushed, however, overall I had a great time reading The Eyes Are the Best Part.

› The Eyes Are the Best Part tackles Asian hate crime, racism, and stereotypes. It talks about dysfunctional families, infidelity, and abandonment. It talks about toxic relationships and gaslighting. It talks about stress and mental illness.

APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: character-driven, intricately plotted, issue-oriented, own voices, unconventional
Pace: engrossing
Tone: angsty, high-drama, suspenseful, thought-provoking, dark, mysterious, gruesome, violent
Writing Style: well-crafted dialogue, candid, compelling, engaging, gritty
Character: authentic, awkward, brooding, complex, flawed, unlikeable, well-developed, diverse

Read Alikes:
Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
My sister, the serial killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang

› In the past I have given a rating out of ten and converted that to a star rating, but I’m no longer giving a star rating here on my blog. I will continue to do that on Goodreads and The Story Graph.

› Final Thoughts
• The Eyes Are the Best Part is an unhinged and disturbing literary horror novel about racism, an unhappy family, and revenge that left me wanting seconds. It’s one of the best fiction books I’ve read this year and one of my favourite horror novels. It reminded me of the TV show Dexter. I recommend this to fans of horror who don’t mind some gore. Kim has said she’s working on another feminist horror novel with the working title Molka (a Korean term for illegal spy cameras that video women). One of her all-time favourite books is Hunger by Lan Samantha Chang. She also enjoys horror authors Shirley Jackson, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Tananarive Due, Christopher Golden, Sayaka Murata, and Bora Chung.