Name of Book: The Eyes are the Best
Author: Monika Kim
Genre: Dark Family Drama
Publisher: Kensington Books- Erewhon Books
Pub Date: June 25, 2024
My Rating: 2 Stars
Pages: 288

When college student Ji-Won’s Appa (father) left the family, his wife Umma was inconsolable and the two daughters Ji-won and her sister Ji-hyun were very upset;
So Ummar shared an old Korean belief, in order to gaining luck one needs to eat the eye of a fish.

When Ji-won’s mom starts dating George a Caucasian, who likes Asian women; he decides that Ji-won will be JW. to avoid the similarities of the two names.
Ji-won doesn’t complain, as she cannot stop thinking about his beautiful blue eyes and how much she wants to cut them out and eat them.

Okay this book is weird! The trigger Content notice at the beginning is four lines long.-starting with: depictions of violence, eye horror, body horror, murder, cannibalism + two more lines.
Why in the world did I pick this?
True! It certainly is very different than any of my other reads’ but I do find the Korean culture interesting.

Story is only 288 pages so I thought -I can do this, surely there is something redeeming about it;
- Turn out the most redeeming thing is that it is a short story;
- although the slow paces as well as too many dream sequences were negatives.
. I discovered that the eyes are not the best but it is when this story ended.
(However the ending hints that Ji-won is still out for revenge)

I am voicing my opinion; however, I am sure other readers will like even love it.

Want to thank NetGalley and Kensington Books- Erewhon Books for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for June 25, 2022.

"The Eyes Are The Best Part," is a chilling tale of family betrayal and the terrifying depths of one young woman's rage. Ji-won's life is shattered when her father's affair tears her family apart, leaving her to grapple with her mother's new boyfriend, George—a manipulative presence Ji-won is determined to protect her family from.

As Ji-won confronts her own demons, she finds herself haunted by disturbing dreams filled with eyes, leading her down a path of revenge. Kim's narrative is a compelling blend of psychological tension and visceral horror, drawing readers into Ji-won's unraveling psyche and the sinister forces at play.

"The Eyes Are The Best Part" is a gripping debut that leaves readers spellbound and craving more, establishing Kim as a bold new voice in horror literature.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for this ARC. This is my honest review.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 stars.

In this debut novel, we follow Ji-won who lives with her mother and sister after their father recently left his mother. She goes to college and seems to be your average young adult, until certain things seem to become more clear about her past and present situation. Their mother has a new boyfriend, George, and he’s a middle-aged, yucky, creepy and racist white man. This, in addition to her father leaving and some other circumstances, causes Ji-won to spiral.
This is a slow descent into insanity and reminded me of “The Shining”.
It’s like watching someone enter into a psychosis and you wonder with the MC if the situations you are reading are actually taking place or just a dream or a hallucination.
Basically, she becomes obsessed with eyeballs and the consumption of them.

Holy shit. This was a WILD ride. It was a bit of a slow start for me, setting the scene but not a whole lot happens right away which’s made it hard for me to pick back up. But boy, once it did pick up, I didn’t want to put it down. I finished the last half in one night because I needed to know more. It made me cringe so hard I had to avert my eyes for a second. The descriptive writing is commendable but also so gross. I wondered “why would someone think about writing this”. But I guess that’s the job of being a writer.
For a debut novel: GREAT BOOK.

I went in this one blind and it absolutely blew my mind!! It literally was one of the best books I’ve read in awhile it kept me guessing from start to finish and have me questions reality 10/10 recommend especially if you like suspense and also a little gore it was AMAZING

Thank you NetGalley and Erewhon Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really wanted to love this book - and at many times I did! It felt a little disjointed and frustrating at times and perhaps that was on purpose, with the fracturing of Ji-Won's sanity and all. Other than that it was iconic and I will never say no to a "good for her" novel, which this absolutely belongs in that category.

Something I especially loved were the parallels between George and Geoffrey - it could have just been spelled Jeffrey, but it felt that Monika Kim did the similar spelling on purpose to show how even though Geoffrey positioned himself as an ally, deep down he could be just as bad as George. Entitled and demanding. Ji-Won is an amazing protagonist, and I love watching the progression of a woman who's ready to snap - because aren't we all, a woman ready to snap?

I requested the book by judging it from it's cover but when i started reading it, it feels like u should not judge a book by it's cover. Its not my type of book i put it down for almost 2,3 times and give up on it. Then i started again and whole heartedly complete it. Thanx to netgalley for approving my request and sorry to the author because i don't like it.

This was my favorite Jan 2024 read.

Readers are taken along on the slow unraveling of Ji-won, a Korean American college girl, and we watch as she develops an obsession with consuming eyeballs.

What really made it standout was the characterization and plot that makes the readers invested and compels us to want to devour this novel. The eye horror was really well-done without overdoing it. This book provides some pretty decent social commentary. My only complaints are that I wish the author explored her growing queer coded obsession with her classmate and the ending was wrapped up too nicely. The readers deserved more chaos.

If you live for unreliable narrators, female rage, and unhinged women, then this is right for you.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Righteous feminine rage abounds in this horror debut from Monika Kim.

We follow a few different threads in The Eyes Are the Best Part: College student Ji-won and her younger sister are trying to navigate their father walking out on the family and their mother's new white boyfriend, George. Complicating matters is the fact that George is a fetishizer, and her new friend at school Geoffrey...well... All the while, Ji-won is having these strange and violent dreams centered around disembodied eyes. Blue eyes. Like George's.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is heavy with considerations about race, gender and family dynamics, tradition vs. modernity, and allyship (false or earnest). It can feel at times like there are so many parts making up the whole that the surface plot comes unmoored from the deeper messages.

This is a successfully tense fever dream of a novel that gets a little lost in its repetition and interiority.

This was everything I thought it would be and it's a debut? We love successful women

Ji-Won is just a girl who can't stand her mothers new (incredibly fetishising) white boyfriend as she navigates university and the 'nice guy' personas there so it's only natural that she might start to think about what it would be like to eat an eyeball, right?

The slow evolution of Ji-Won as a serial killer was so subtle you almost miss it. It seems so natural for her to take these steps and at first you're left wondering if that actually happened and sort of thinking 'what did I just read?', but in the absolute best way possible. The narrative voice is palpable and the story is so well constructed.

With how perfect this book was feeling I was a little nervous for the end as recently I've found that the closure of a novel isn't what I hope it to be but this had such a perfect end. The final chapters are a beautiful culmination of everything you want to happen and are so satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley and Erewhon for passing on the ARC. I requested this on a whim and was not disappointed!

Our main character, Ji-Won, is struggling. Her father has left, her mother is devastated, she's lonely, and her grades are suffering. When a misogynist with an Asain fetish appears as an answer to her mother's woes, he inadvertently triggers a hunger in Ji-Won. She wants him. Or, rather, she wants his eyes. His beautiful, blue, mouthwateringly delicious-looking eyes. They are, after all, the best part.

I found this to be a relatively easy, fast-paced read with a wholly unique spin on the female serial killer genre. Ji-Won is such a flawed, unhinged character, but it's hard not to root for her. And for something so relatively short, the book expertly tackles tough issues that take other efforts twice the page count.

All in all, a strong debut and well-worth picking up. 4 stars

“Yeah, sorry, I ate a homeless guys eyeball lastnight, and I’m really struggling with it, so….”

A growing sense of unease hovers over the story like a dark storm cloud…..

When you sense something is off but you just can’t quite put your finger on it….

This is one of the most entertaining reads I have devoured lately! A familial trauma story with an unhinged twist! I could not have dreamed what would happen next. My only warning is don’t be near food when you read a few scenes. It is very graphic in the best way! I absolutely loved this book! A young girl will do anything to protect her family and an old family tradition gives way to something far more sinister than just luck….

Ji-won’s life takes a turn when her father has an affair and leaves them. She’s a college freshman, and ends up going from a straight A student, to failing. Her dreams are horrifying, yet enticing.

In them, she walks through rooms full of eyes, specifically blue eyes. All the same shape as George, her mother’s obnoxious and racist new boyfriend.

As victims start accumulating around her on campus, Ji-won’s hunger and rage have yet to be satisfied.

This book had some very intense scenes and I loved it! One of my favorite parts was how the title was apparent throughout the book. I get so confused when I’m reading, I finish, and the title made no sense. That was not the case here, you know almost right away, and it is a theme throughout the book. This book had a lot going on for being so short, it touched on misogyny, racism, toxic relationships, cannibalism, and violence just to name a few, and they were all well done! This is a horror book where things get gory, and it made me cringe in the best way, though it isn’t one I would want to read while eating! The pacing was fast and drew me in right from the start. I stayed engaged throughout the entire story and couldn’t wait to find out how things wrapped up. I appreciated the ending and felt it was perfect for what had happened.

This book was fantastic for a debut, and I wouldn’t have guessed it; I didn’t know until the end!

What a wild ride this entire story was!

I wasn't sure if this book was what I was thinking it was based off the title, but then it kicked into high gear and I never looked back!

I loved that the author dispersed some information regarding the Korean culture throughout the story. It made it that much better.

All of the characters are well written and thought out. They intertwine so well which made this book so easy to read and enjoy.

While there are some grotesque parts in the book, it didn't make me want to stop reading. it added to the originality of the story.

i really wanted to like this!! ultimately, i think the plot had a little too much going on for such a short book. i would have liked to dive deeper into any of the storylines since they all felt pretty surface level

This was unhinged. It was great.
Korean-American college student whose father suddenly abandons the family and whose mother brings home an awful xenophobic boyfriend suddenly becomes obsessed with eating said-boyfriend's eyes? Okay.
The writing in this was wonderfully gory (many, many descriptions of the texture of eyeballs), and the murderous rampage storyline was great to follow. In between that, this book also managed to explore themes of misogyny, racism, divorce, and toxic relationships, among other things.
My one gripe is that there was a certain, small reveal near the end of the book that just felt unnecessary. No spoilers, but the events that followed that this event was (I think) supposed to set up could have happened just as easily without it, and probably more believably.

This debut was absolutely excellent. You feel absolute compassion, sadness, frustration, annoyance, and worry reading about Ji-won and her family as things slowly begin to unravel, most of all Ji-won herself. The discussions of racism, fetishism, and sexism were a great addition to the story and while I never really found myself rooting for Ji-won, I enjoyed watching her slowly become unhinged. Also, the body horror in this was fabulous. I had to put down my own dinner while reading which is definitely a compliment toward Monika Kim's talent as a writer. I'm looking forward to whatever she has in store for her next novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and author for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

“Feminist psychological horror” had my attention from the very beginning - and it delivered! The Eyes Are the Best Part tells the story of a family falling apart after the father leaves. It is told from the perspective of Ji-won who must juggle her mother who is struggling, her sister who feels rejected, her own grades at college and her dreams…which have been somewhat terrifying lately. But enticing. Eyes feature prominently in this story - as the title would suggest - and as someone who is quite squeamish about eyes this had my toes curling on multiple occasions. Thoroughly enjoyed this and can’t wait to see what this author comes up with next!!

There's a lot to love about this book: the vivid descriptions of body horror, the psychopathic protagonist, great plot pacing, interesting themes.

However, the fact that this is the author's debut shows in the execution of these ideas. Most side (and some main) characters are left flat and stereotypically good or evil. There are a disproportionate amount of events convenient to the plot and weird character dialogue. Subplots are left unfinished and the protagonist doesn't grow or change.

All that said, I'm looking forward to what this author writes in the future and would definitely recommend this book to anyone who isn't afraid of ruining their appetite.

Oh my goodness, I barely know how to I describe what I read besides saying it was utterly amazing. It didn’t turn out to be what I expected, it was so much better. I’ll be checking out more of Monika Kim’s work, and look at getting a hard copy of ‘The Eyes Are the Best Part’ once it releases.

3.5 stars!

Got to love feminine rage/revenge

This was a good representation of family dynamics and the life of a young girl. The talk of racism/fetish was so interesting and needs to be spoken about more.

For me it took so long to become this strange eye ball obsession book and I wish the atmosphere was a little more weird so the build up was a better payoff. Found myself skim reading