a quick, guttural, maniac read. i absolutely adored it and devoured it in one sitting. it’s one of those books that need to find its audience or otherwise it won’t be appreciated as it should.

thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing this arc in exchange for an honest review.

“𝑾𝒉𝒐 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒂𝒏'𝒕 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒍 𝒚𝒐𝒖? 𝑰𝒔 𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒂𝒏𝒚-𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆? 𝑰𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒎 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒆𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒂 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅, 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏 𝒊𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒅𝒆.”

The Eyes Are The Best Part is a strong debut from Monika Kim, even if the middle act suffers for the lack of it.

Full of feminine rage, murder, and fetishization, you, along with the main character herself, begin to spiral as the book goes deeper and deeper into her relationship with men and how they treat her. Notably, I think the family dynamics presented in the book are GREAT, providing a not only realistic, but also genuine great view at how divorce affects all.

Despite this, the book does slightly fall underway because of its short page. It’s not allowed to truly let the events of what is happening sink in with you, and in the third act, despite that being the best part, it certainly feels quicker and sped up than necessary. Notably the last couple of chapters kinda fall flat because it’s such a blur of emotion and whatnot. The writing also isn’t the best, it definitely could’ve been polished and shined before being put out.

But it’s also a genuinely really good, fast paced, heart pumping book that is a great introduction to thrillers.

2.5!⭐️

I really wanted to like this book. But I just found it really slow and boring and just couldn’t get into it. I don’t know if I’m just not in the mind space for it as normally I’d enjoy books like this or if I just don’t like it. So I may reread it in the future.

This is just my honest opinion though, other readers may enjoy this one and it’s definitely worth a read. But it’s not for me.

Holy smokes this is my kind of read. Suspense and a little gore! If you are into that type of stuff then this is the book for you! Kept me going from the get go. I so couldn’t put this book down it was incredible

Ji-won is an 18 year old Korean American woman living with her parents and younger sister who is trying to make it through her first year of college when her father unexpectedly leaves the family. Her mother soon after starts dating George, a middle aged white man with a misogynistic world view and a tendency to fetishize Asian culture and women. This novel follows Ji-won’s descent into violence as she becomes obsessed with eyeballs - particularly eating blue eyes - and revenge.

This book will not be for everyone, but it was definitely for me! The gore was viscerally written and as a blue-eyed lady I was wincing every time eyes were brought up. The pacing of the story was just right and it remained engaging from the first page to the last. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more by Monika Kim!

Thank you to Kensington Books, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for access to this ARC in exchange for an honest review

I reallt wished I liked this more but I felt like I was promised a whole other book than the one I read

thanks to publisher & netgalley for this ARC.
I read "The Eyes Are the Best Part" almost in 24 hours. Our narrator, Ji-won, is the daughter of a family that immigrated to America from South Korea.
Ji-won's life, who lives with her mother, father and sister who is a few years younger than her, changes one day:Her father leaves her mother for another woman.. George, a non-Korean man with nothing-looks-true-about him, who enters the life of Ji-won's depressed mother, brings new problems for her sister and Ji-won. At the same time, Ji-won, who is studying at the university, begins to be surrounded by Geoffrey, who wants to be with her almost obsessively: with the girl he thinks 'different thn the others'.
Although the family traditionally believe that eating fish eyes can bring luck, for Ji-won luck and eyes have nothing to do.
Ji-won, who becomes obsessed with protecting her mother and their lives after the new chapter in their lives bc of the father's left, focuses on the eyes, or lets say "eating" the eyes.
The novel tells the culmination of the obsession in the brain of a serial killer. While telling this, the author explains the differences between American culture and South Korean culture through the conflicts the characters experience in their interactions with their environment. Being a stranger and not being able to belong can be considered as an individual and social reason for Ji-won's chronic loneliness.
You can read the dimensions of being marginalized as a woman and a South Korean at the same time in the novel.
A fast-reading, exciting thriller novel, i recommend you to read,too.

This is such an amazing book! Thank you so much for the ARC. I was intrigued when I saw cover. But this book is beyond my imagination. Absolutely love it!!!

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!