The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim

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Release Date: June 25, 2024

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Synopsis

Feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.

Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing.

In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.

For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.

A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave readers mesmerized and craving more.

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Overall Rating

4/5

Spooky Rating

3/5

Quick Take

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim is an ingenious take on the making of a female serial killer through a Korean-American perspective. The body horror, eye horror, and cannibalism are nauseating, but the unhinged thoughts and female rage are what truly haunted me. If you can stomach it, this is a must-read for fans of female rage horror. It is sure to become as iconic as Maeve Fly by CJ Leede and American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

Tell Me More

Female rage horror is a favorite of mine, and going into this book I was intrigued by the Korean-American perspective. Objectification of Asian women is a big focus of the novel, and I was so happy to see the main character, Ji-won, and her sister, Ji-hyun, fight back against it. The book follows Ji-won after her father leaves their family and addresses the anger and grief that both Ji-won and her sister experience. Ji-won begins to slowly unravel, but things truly escalate when her mother starts dating a white man named George. George’s sense of superiority and objectification of Asian women is wild and disgusting. Through the ordeal, Ji-won’s hatred of him and her father begins to spread to other men as well.

George and my mother are sleeping deeply. Umma is still, but with every breath George hacks and coughs. I’ll watch as the life seeps out of him. His face will turn blue. The scene gives me so much pleasure that for a moment I run my hand over the blankets.

Grief, loneliness, and the feeling of being responsible for a parent’s emotions and wellbeing are main aspects of the story, making it was unexpectedly heartbreaking. While Ji-won’s actions and thoughts were unhinged, I did relate to her with her feelings of jealousy over her high school friends who all got into the same college without her. While her actions against them were inappropriate, they were surprisingly cathartic. Her loneliness caused her to become possessive over a new friend at her college, and it highlighted how difficult adult friendships can be.

While there were some repetitions in phrases and the constant mentioning of the color blue which felt a bit overdone, the overall arc of Ji-won’s character development was terrifying. Her obsession with eyes and the descriptions of the process of eating them was shocking, but they revealed just how unhinged Ji-won was. The imagery was fantastic, and I felt nauseated throughout, but I couldn’t put the book down.

“You both need to be careful,” she said. “I know that the plant is pretty, but poison is everywhere, even in the places where you least expect it.”

The book is fairly fast paced, and the ending completely shocked me, which is hard to do. I ate it up, and I’m still thinking about it and trying to dissect and make sense of some of what happened. However, it did feel like the ending was a bit hurried, and I wish that it had been drawn out a little longer.

The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim is a horror novel unlike anything I have ever read. It features Korean-American issues, family drama, and deep body horror all with a serial killer twist. While it wasn’t perfect, it is a must read for fans of the genre. I am excited to see what this author does next!

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Trigger Warnings: violence, body horror, eye horror, murder, cannibalism, descriptions of war trauma (non-graphic, starvation), stalking, sexism, and racism (Asian objectification).

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*Thank you to Kensington Books, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for the ARC. All quotes used have been compared with the final copy.

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