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Book: “The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim
Publishing Info: Erewhon Books, June 2024
Where Did I Get This Book: I received an eARC from NetGalley.
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: 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.
Review: Thank you to NetGalley for sending an eARC of this novel!
Most every night when I have no plans, around 9 or so I retreat to bed to read until I turn out the light. My husband’s routine is to stay up playing video games until around the time I’m turning out the light. One such night he came into our room as I was reading “The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim. He asked “Ah, what are you reading tonight?” And I cheerfully said “I’m reading a book about a woman who is slowly descending into madness and is fantasizing about eating eyeballs”. To which he said, rather despondently, “I wish I could go into the way back machine and not ask that question”. Which, hey, I get it. It does sound pretty gross, and that’s something that a reader tends to want in a body horror tale. But I also told him that it’s actually an interesting satire and social exploration while also being about eating eyeballs. He wasn’t convinced, but let me tell you, I stand by this assessment and it’s also what makes “The Eyes Are the Best Part” more than just a shocking splatterfest.
I’ll lead off with the splatterfest, however, because man, Kim isn’t afraid to be gross and disturbing. There are many descriptions in this book about cannibalism, and mutilation, and general violence, and they don’t hold back. I definitely found myself wincing and having to skim every once in awhile when I am usually a fairly seasoned horror reader, but it never felt like it was in bad taste, somehow, and that’s probably because Kim’s story has a deeper point (we’ll get to that in a bit) as well as some really effective devices to anchor the violence within a very sympathetic protagonist in Ji-won. It’s from her perspective and we get to see in real time how she is slipping more and more into obsession, rage, and perhaps madness, and it’s a really well done spin on the unreliable narrator. It utilizes this well in the body horror tale, and it’s SO gross at times but always kept me compelled. It’s a fine line for me, because a lot of the time once you get too gross and in your face I’m turned off because it just feels like it’s trying to shock for shock’s sake. “The Eyes Are the Best Part” never took it that far. But trust, it’s still gross. So don’t worry, those who like that kind of thing. I think it will still work for you.
What really stood out to me, though, is how Kim has taken Ji-won and her circumstances and has managed to make her a multi-faceted and nuanced protagonist, even if she is a budding serial killer who has become obsessed with eating other people’s eyes, specifically the eyes of her mother’s new boyfriend George, a white man who is clearly fetishizing this family of Korean-American women based on their race. I found Ji-won’s arc incredibly compelling as she is slowly descending into her madness and instability, and how Kim weaves some great social commentary into the story and the foundation of it. Whether it’s having to hold her mother and sister together after her father abandoned them for a younger woman, or having to maneuver through her own discomfort and the microaggressions she experiences as an Asian woman in modern America, or having to deal with an overt misogynistic racist like George or a covert one like a classmate that she, at first, enjoys the company of (THIS was the most interesting thread in the story for me, as the overt creeps like George can pale in comparison to the creeps who hide behind empty allyship and hollow/self serving white progressivism), or just having to deal with her own traumas and losses, Ji-won’s ultimate path is a dark one, but it’s one that does have reason, and does evoke sympathy. And hey, if there can be stories about sympathetic white men murderers, there should be room for others that don’t fit that mold as far as I’m concerned.
I quite enjoyed “The Eyes Are the Best Part”. Monika Kim is a debut author to watch, because this is a STRONG debut and I have high hopes that it’s going to lead to a great horror career.
Rating 8: Twisted and gross at times, but also a cutting insight into living in America as a Korean American woman, “The Eyes Are the Best Part” is a nasty horror novel with some serious teeth.
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Eyes Are the Best Part” is included on the Goodreads list “Books With Names That Slap”.
The Library Ladies 