I couldn't put this own down! Creepy and haunting, a terrifying display of a young woman's descent into madness. More that it seems, this is a book you really can't miss. But maybe check for trigger warnings before you pick it up.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

You HAVE to add this one to your list of books with an unhinged FMC.

Fresh and engrossing, this horror story certainly deserves the hype. Our protagonist is Ji-won, the eldest daughter of an Asian-American family reeling after her father’s abandonment. As she struggles to shelter her little sister from the pain and keep her grades up, she’s surprised when their mother suddenly smiles again… and tells them she’s seeing a man. An obnoxious white man, with piercing blue eyes that Ji-won can’t stop thinking about. Soon enough, eyes are *all* Ji-won can think about, especially what they might taste like if she were to pop them into her mouth like the fish eyes her mother is so fond of.

But this isn’t mindless horror: there’s a solid heart beneath that explores the immigrant experience, family dynamics, sexism, Otherness, and in particular, the fetishization of Asian women. You can’t help but empathize with Ji-won as she reckons with her father’s rejection and gross men; you feel her growing rage and want her to act on it. And when she begins to accept that nobody is going to protect her and the women in her family… oh, that’s when the fun begins.

In some ways, this book reminded me of Mona Awad’s “Bunny” - it’s claustrophobic and hallucinatory at points, straddling the line between dreamland and the waking world. Is Ji-won out there killing people, or is she just losing her grip on reality? Part of the story also takes place in an academic setting and a dingy cityscape, and there’s (imo) a theme of repressed queerness here too.

This is an unmissable read for fans of Asian-American literature and body horror, and I’m looking forward to the author’s next works!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I LOVED THIS ONE SO MUCHHHHH!

GIVE ME ALL THE GOOD-FOR-HER NARRATIVES!!!

I am so thankful to Kensington/Erewhon Books, Netgalley, and Monika Kim for granting me advanced digital access to this gem before it hits shelves on June 25, 2024. This novel about family, love, and revenge is oh-so-sweet to the taste.

Ji-Won and Ji-Hyun are witnessing their Umma grieve the sudden leaving of her husband and their Appa. Left behind, Umma is eager to get back out on the dating scene and brings home a white man named George, who is struck with yellow fever in the creepiest, fetish way. He lurks where he shouldn't, and it creeps the two daughters out, knowing their Umma is too love-blind to see his misdoings. Determined to break up their relationship, Ji-Won develops a desire for eyeballs, mainly from fish at the dinner table. Still, as George continues to creep them out, there's almost nothing holding her back from scooping out one of those eyeballs and savoring it for herself.

To make sure she likes human eyeballs, Ji-Won tests out this craving with a side of serial killing as she takes out students in her area for the weeks to come. The nearby university grows nervous about this finding, with parents requesting heightened security measures be put in place, but that only amplifies Ji-Won's needs. With a fresh wedding proposal in Umma's life, Ji-Won is running out of time to save her little family from the grimy hands of a perverse man, so she takes this situation into her own hands and lures George into a scenario he cannot resist.

I really enjoyed the good-for-her narratives and this really is like if you mashed up My Sister the Serial Killer and Crying in H-Mart. I couldn't get enough of Ji-Won's antics and cravings -- she won Daughter of the Year in my book.

I was SO excited to get approved or this ARC as it was a very anticipated release for me and it did NOT disappoint. It was the perfect mix of gory but emotional. You really found yourself feeling for Ji-won, even while she was uhhh.. scooping out eyeballs. I think this book perfectly represents the pressure and consequences of times in your life where a lot of things are changing and it's scary. As a person AFRIAD OF CHANGE, it really resonated with me and honestly covered so much including misogyny, racism, toxic relationships, and violence. I think the pacing and length were perfect and the characters were really fleshed out. Geoffrey was INSUFFERABLE and I have met many Geoffreys in my life and he was written perfectly and I LOVED the ending, it really wrapped up nicely. What an absolutely stunning debut!

Ji-won's life takes a dramatic turn when her father's infidelity shatters her family, sending her academic performance spiraling from top grades to failure during her freshman year in college. Haunted by disturbing yet oddly compelling dreams, she finds herself navigating through surreal landscapes filled with a multitude of eyes, all reminiscent of her mother's new partner, George—a man characterized by his obnoxiousness and racist attitudes.

As mysterious deaths begin to occur around her on campus, Ji-won's inner turmoil of hunger and fury remains unsatiated. The book, filled with intense scenes, captivated me from the start. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the consistent presence of the title's thematic relevance throughout the narrative—a clarity often missing in other works. Despite its brevity, the story delves into a multitude of issues including misogyny, racism, toxic relationships, cannibalism, and violence, each handled with skillful execution.

While the horror elements were indeed grisly, eliciting a visceral response, it's not the kind of read I'd recommend during mealtime! The brisk pacing immediately drew me in, keeping me engrossed until the satisfying conclusion. The ending felt fitting given the events that transpired.

For a debut work, this book was remarkably well-crafted—I wouldn't have guessed it was a debut until the end!

10/10 concept, the execution is ify tho. It's good enough, but you can tell that this is a debut novel.

There were more hard-hitting themes than I expected. The mother is such a deeply sad character. She sometimes felt more like folklore than a human for some reason. I struggled to see her as a real person. Her decisions and reactions are very much believable but there's just something cartoonish about her.

I related to Ji-wons academic failures more than I care to admit. Also, this might just be my opinion, because I didn't pick up on the author confirming or denying it, but her relationship with Alexis has undertones of a crush. Maybe in a next book we'll see (I assume by the ending that a book 2 is planned).

Ji-won's other uni friend however... The wayyyyyy Geoffrey irked me from his very first appearance is incredible.. Later the book makes it clear that his pretentiousness and surface level feminism are intentional, and he's meant to be a loser like that, but still.

George was also incredibly infuriating but I kinda skipped over some of his bullshittery because I figured that he's probably gonna die. And that brings peace into the reading experience ngl. Most of my annotations about him were simple like "JAIL" and "HELL NAH".
On the topic of disappointing men, it's ironic that the root of all troubles is the father and yet we never see him.

Ji-won's unreliable narration takes us on trips sometimes, made me question what's real and what isn't a few times. I enjoy lucid dreams in fiction, they have lots of potential.

The events that did happen were.. a choice. The rest of the book is so woven through with serious subjects that I can't not take the serial killing part also seriously. There's no way in hell that this girl got away with all that. The first kill is later in the book than I thought it would be, and sometimes Ji-won's violence is quite out of the blue. But that's all fine, the unrealistic thing is that on every scene there is her DNA, she pays no attention to hiding what she's done, and all bodies are found near to where she's been last seen. I get the part that the police is looking for a man and she probably won't be charged because they underestimate her. But even the book acknowledges that she could very easily be caught based on all the evidence she left behind.
In the end I think it's supposed to be a girlboss moment the way she ties everything together and pulls it off, but dude it was mere luck. If you wanna read her as a girlboss that's fine, but I just don't buy it.

It was still better than A Certain Hunger, this one has a lot more value and important themes, would recommend this one over that.

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.

This book is of the horror genre but also highlights racism and mysogynism, which is neatly intwined in the plot. George is a pig. Facts.

Ji-won is a deeply troubled character who takes on the burdens of her family in order love honour their race and gender and therefore creates an anti-hero of her generation.

Basically moral of the story is don't piss off Ji-Won and don't be a racist, sexist pig and your eyes will remain on your face and you'll be all good.

Great plot, great characters, and personally for me a great addition for Korean-American literature.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC!

All I can say is…wow! I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book initially (I was on the fence about how I felt about Ji-won’s character - she was hard to love sometimes), but just a few chapters in and I was undoubtedly hooked.

This story is unhinged and disgusting in the best of ways. Definitely one of my favorite reads of 2024 so far! I know I’ll be thinking about Ji-won and her story for days to come!

Beautiful writing by Monika Kim! So excited to see what she releases in the future!

4.5
You’ve got body horror, revenge, unhinged woman, misogyny, racism, fetishization and just so much! The descriptions of the eyeballs! All I can say is WOW, my jaw definitely dropped a few times. Definitely had my eyes rolling at the rage-inducing behavior of the entitled, fetishizing, and manipulative white men in this book. They also felt like too much at points but thinking about it there sadly are men like that that exist.
I really liked reading about the relationship between Ji-won and her sister and how they deal with their mother and her new boyfriend. The chapters are also really short which makes the book fly by! I enjoyed the writing even though at times did feel like it dragged just a bit.

Looking forward to whatever Monika Kim writes next!

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC

This book is such a wild ride. We follow Ji-Won a Korean American girl dealing with the fallout of her father cheating and leaving the family. Ji-Won begins to develop a fascination with eyeballs after being told that eating a fish eye will bring good luck. Her mother begins dating a truly disgusting white man that treats her terribly and fetishizes asian women. As Ji-Won's life begins to spin further out of control her obsession with eyes, particularly blue eyes grows. This is an impeccably written horror book. I was as invested in the characters as I was the plot. I could not put it down. It is perfect for anyone that enjoys complicated female characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Eyes Are The Best Part is a deep descent into a young Korean girls madness after her father leaves the family. Ji-Won feels nothing but anger towards her father and shame and embarassment towards her umma who can't seem to function without a man there to tell her how to survive in life. Not long after her Appa leaves Ji-Wons mother brings home George. An older white man who clearly has a thing for Asians and who Ji-Won and her sister right away get a queasy feeling about. Umma feels like she's hit the lottery, ever since her husband left when she cooks fish she pops the squishy eye in her mouh and bites down feeling it pop in her mouth. It is said that it brings good luck which she wants nothing more than her girls to also have. Finally after much pestering her girls Ji-Won finally gives in and pops an eyeball into her mth expecting to hate it but finding instead that she loves the feeling of the cartilage popping in her mouth and the feeling of the viscous fluid sliding over her teeth.

Luck however is not what eating that eyeball brings Ji-Won, instead it brings her a blindfully painful desire for eyes. Blue eyes imparticular, like the eyes of her Umma's new boyfriend George. Suddenly lust for the taste of eyes is all that Ji-Won can think of. This lust will take her to places that she never dreamed of going. Speakning of dreams she's not always sure when she is awake or dreaming which alone can get her into trouble.

I wanted so much to just adore this book but it feel a little flat for me. There wasn't a single character that I could find myself rooting for. They weren't terrible there just wasn't much reason for me to care for them. the descriptions of the eyeballs, how they tasted and felt made me a little queasy from time to time but it didn't really strike horror or anything like that to me. Its not a bbad book by any means its just not my kind of book.

I want to thank #Netgalley for the chance to read #TheEyesAreTheBestPart by #MonikaKim in return for a fair and honest review.

Unhinged woman, revenge plot, body horror, feminism, cultural dialogue….this book checked a lot of my boxes. I found myself engaged during the whole book and wanting to know what the MC would get up to next. My jaw dropped a couple times. Based on the ending I would be happy to see a sequel! Monika Kim has written a fantastic debut novel and I’ll eagerly read anything else she publishes.

A masterpiece of psychological horror. This book will haunt me. Monika Kim makes the seemingly mundane pressures of everyday life - divorce, college, parents finding new partners, loneliness - and makes you feel how brutally they can squeeze a person's life and mind. Ji-won's life is being turned upside down and inside out. Her family is unraveling because her dad has left. Her mother is falling apart. The pressures of college are crushing her. There's generational trauma from her immigrant parents, haunting memories of poverty and starvation, and there's the world itself, with all its racism and sexism intruding everywhere all the time. And inside all of this is Ji-won's own mind, cracking into sharper and sharper fragments. Ji-won doesn't just break, though. She is also changing herself, turning into something and someone new, in the process. Kim beautifully captures the deteriorating, transforming relationships between parent and child, between two sisters, between friends, and between Ji-won and the world. You can feel her life, her mind, getting squeezed tighter and tighter, and her final transformation is both terrifying and darkly exhilarating.

Korean American college student Ji-won is still dealing with the aftermath of her father abruptly abandoning his family when her mom gets a new boyfriend. George is white, brash, and casually racist, but Ji-won's mom seems to love him, so what choice does Ji-won have but to go along with it? Meanwhile, Ji-won's struggling at college, as she's lonely and doesn't have the great grades she's used to from high school. As George's rudeness escalates, Ji-won's mental state deteriorates to the point that she becomes fixated on his bright blue eyes and all of the hatred they represent to her.

This is a really fantastic twist on psychological horror, seeing the villain's descent into madness from her own point of view. It's also a great example of social horror, seeing how all of the microaggressions affect Ji-won's mental state. As you could expect from the title and cover (which will likely be fueling my nightmares for months to come), there's a bit of cannibalism in this book, and while it's not something you want to read while eating, it wasn't nearly as stomach-churning as I feared it would be. I was pleasantly surprised by this one!

When college student Ji-Won's father leaves, it sends shockwaves through her and her family's life. As she navigates infuriating new relationships with white men, she starts having unsettling dreams and cravings for eyes that start bleeding into reality. It's hard to say what's more unsettling - the body horror, or the rage-inducing behavior of the entitled, fetishizing, and manipulative two white men in Ji-Won's life. The relationships between Ji-Won and her mother and sister were well realized, and the tension keeps ratcheting up throughout. The chapters are short and tense, making this a compelling read. There were times when the rage at whiteness and male entitlement became more soapbox statements than naturally interwoven into the story, and I wish the author had trusted the reader to make the connections and realizations for themself. Similarly, the men were so over the top villainous that it detracted from the message. It felt like a first novel - but one with enough going for it that I'm excited to see what the author does next!

Good book and I think the concept was great. It was strange and entertaining in all the right ways. I usually am not one for books like this but this book was really good and I liked it

When I saw this compared to 'My Sister, the Serial Killer' I knew it was an instant read for me, as that book is one of my absolute favorites and 'The Eyes Are the Best Part' absolutely lives up to that strong comparison. As soon as I started reading it, I was absolutely hooked and it did not let up. The writing is perfection, and what a wonderful debut novel. One of the best entries into the 'female rage' genre. Highly recommended.

Ji-won’s Dad suddenly moves out leaving a trail of emotional havoc on their family and her Mom goes into severe depression. Ji-won and her sister try to be patient and understanding with their Mom even when she suddenly has a boyfriend, George, only months after her Dad moves out. Ji-won can’t sleep, her grades are suffering and she becomes obsessed with the eyes of the fish they eat seeing them in her nightmares and hallucinations from the stress and abandonment of her father and George moving in. As she is headed for a nervous breakdown a series of murders occur near her college campus where the eyes have been removed. This is a psychological suspense that will leave you shaking your head as you try to decipher and understand Ji-won!

Thank you to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the ARC!
#NetGalley #TheEyesAretheBestPart

Love the female rage, couldn't bring myself to feel bad for any of the victims, they deserved it. So hard to put down.

A commendable addition to the burgeoning "women who kill" subgenre. We need more books about female serial killers!! 👁

Ji-won is a college student whose family begins to collapse after her father leaves and her mother begins dating a really creepy white man. Spiraling out of control, she finds herself increasing obsessed with eyes and the desire to eat them whole. What began as an attempt to cheer up her mother—eating a fish eye—quickly escalates to violence in a desperate bid for control. What better way to gain power over male objectification than by consuming the vessel used to oggle and ostracize?

The very short chapters are an attempt at invoking frentic tension and a sense of mental instability. It works better in some portions of the story than in others. There are some clunky moments that fast-forward in time and seem more like the author planned on adding to that section but forgot before submitting a final draft. Other people may not be put off by this, but it annoyed me enough to drop my rating. Again this choice was clearly intentional, it's just a writing technique I personally dislike.

This novel weaves together the gratuitous gore and violence one expects from a serial killer/slasher story descending into madness and obsession with racism and sexism. The fetishization of Asian women is viewed just as, if not more, horrifically than the protagonist's bouts of violence. Full of both micro-agressions and explicit bigotry, those sensitive to such topics should tread lightly.

If you enjoyed "Maeve Fly" but wished that book had less 'sad girl' vibes and more social commentary, this is the book for you!!