Content Warnings: Racism & Fetishization of Asian Women, Misogyny, Stalking, Cannibalism

Themes: Unhinged Women, Korean Family Dynamics, Feminism

My Thoughts:
A unique serial killer origin story with a sprinkle of body horror. Ji-Won’s character development was so good I found myself rooting for her. The tension build up made this a one-sitting read for me. I could not put this book down! I would probably liken this book to Gone Girl and Maeve Fly. If you dig psychological horror, this book is for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Net Galley and Erewhon Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I needed to process this overnight after finishing the book! Easily 5 star read for me! The narrator slowly becomes unhinged by things happening in her life, and you get to “watch it” unravel right before you. The book is very well written, super cringey, very detailed, and has you wanting more. This book is sure to be a favorite for all readers!! Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

Holy. Cow.
I had a feeling that this one was going to give me all types of icky feelings, and i was right! (in a good way!) I love nothing more than an uncomfortable novel. something that makes me squirm thinking about what is going to come next. Monica Kim perfectly encapsulates the teenage girl descent to madness that I have always wanted to read. You have become an instant-buy author for me! KEEP IT UP!

I wasn't sure what to expect with The Eyes Are the Best Part, but phew it was a RIDE. Ji-won's slow descent into madness left me needing to devour more and more
of this book. After everything she goes through and everything she does, I can't help but say' "You know what? Good for her".

Really enjoyed the book from start to finish. Author wrote this with great pace. This book is now one of my top books of the year for sure. Loved every second of this book

I received an electronic copy from Netgalley.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is a darkly funny page-turner of a book. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, writing, and pacing as well as the Korean-American viewpoint. I would recommend this book to others who enjoy thrillers/body horror with a bit of comedy and interesting race dynamics. I look forward to buying the hardback once it gets released!

thank you so much to netgalley and kensington books for the ARC!

ji-won is having a though time.
her dad left the family household, her grades are plummeting and her mom’s new boyfriend is an obnoxious creep who fetishisizes asian women. however, despite her hatred, or perhaps because of it, her dreams are filled with george’s blue eyes, tempting her, famishing her. she just needs to take a bite. just one. for luck.

i’ve been having a hard time finding the “thrills” in my thrillers recently but monika kim’s debut soooo hit the bull’s eye (pun absolutely intended). it is such a fresh take on the psychological horror genre wrapped in an incredibly easy-to-breeze-through writing. the characters are fleshed out and ji-won’s development will have you whooping and cheering for her, despite her questionable actions (or maybe i just have a problem).
honestly, the best word to describe this novel is just fun, man. i had so much fun reading about this girl growing more and more obsessed, so much fun getting grossed out at the just right amount of eye horror and had an incredible amount of fun going “oh, you SO deserve to have your eye eaten” every single time a man looked at ji-won the wrong way.
monika kim puts the treatment of asian women specifically, under the microscope and the carefully woven-through social commentaries, whether on racism, fetishization or feminism add an appreciable depth to the story.

the eyes are the best part comes out in june 2024 and if you love an unhinged woman, i can’t recommend it enough.

also i could write whole essays about this cover. it is supreme. it is one of my favorites of the last few years. it has not left my mind for days.

i literally JUST finished this and had to run over here to post my review. i LOVED this novel from start to finish, it pulled me in from the very first line and kept me in its grasp until the very last one. from the synopsis i thought i had an idea in mind of what this would be about and where it would go but i loved every twist and turn, every surprise, every step along the way, but the way it all built up into that DOOZY of a climax... i am just speechless. i loved this, i want to recommend it to any and every single person i know. a million stars/5.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc. i can't wait to purchase a physical copy for my library!

Monika Kim paints a horrifying and graphic picture in "The Eyes Are the Best Part." As someone in the medical field who considers herself not very squeamish, this book had me up thinking about it most of the night. Definitely pick this one up if you're a fan of horror or looking to branch out. It's fast paced and short and a great introduction to the genre.

4.2/5 stars!

This was my favourite book of 2024 so far!

When Korean-American college student Ji-won’s mom starts dating racist, misogynistic George, Ji-won is repulsed. But she can’t stop thinking about his beautiful blue eyes…and how much she wants to cut them out and eat them.

Yup, this book is weird! It features a main character who craves the taste of human eyeballs. And yet, it completely works. It’s beautifully written and full of twists and turns. It shrewdly skewers the racism and misogyny faced by Asian women, and Ji-won is a protagonist you’ll find your self cheering for…cannibalism and all.

I haven’t been thoroughly creeped and grossed out in a long time. This one did it. As someone who loves to have a visceral reaction to books, I was so pleased to plow though this book until midnight, followed by not being able to sleep.

A quick, astonishingly addictive read—I can’t wait to see more stories from Monika Kim!

👀 if you’re a horror fan, pick this up in June.

Release date: 6/25/24

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for this phenomenal ARC read!

I’m so glad that the brain tumor was not blamed for Ji-wun’s behavior. She just so happened to have a tumor, but she also enjoyed killing men and eating their eyes. And, to be honest, the whole time, at each murder, I was like this bitch is being clumsy, she will get caught, but then there was Geoffrey, being a frickin creep. Meh, oh well. 😜

Some parts predictable, some parts heartbreaking, some parts not quite fleshed out enough, but an overall good and quick read.

Ji-won is a young Korean American who is going through a hard transitional shift.
She has lost all of her friends, her parents split up, her mom’s new boyfriend has an Asian fetish, she has started college and already failing, and to top it all off, she is starting to crave eyeballs.
We follow Ji-won as she slowly becomes more unhinged while planning out the perfect revenge.

Cons: -the story moved too slowly for me, especially in the middle.
-tedious details. One example is being told what the family is eating, almost daily.

Pros: -loved the eye detail and information. -description with how exactly an eyeball feels and tastes like.
-a unique story. I can easily saw I’ve never read anything like this.
-satisfying, revenge ending.

This was so good!! Graphic, but good. The writing style was engaging, characters were relatable. I will definitely read more from Monika Kim.

Compulsively readable. I couldn't put this down and finished it over two days. Our protagonist Ji-won is an 18 year old second generation Korean immigrant, who has tried to be a good daughter and a good student. When her father suddenly leaves, her life, and mental stability, start to spiral. After trying to appease her mother by eating a fish eye (the best part!) Ji-won develops a fixation she can't shake.

I can't call it a slow burn due to its short length, but definitely stick with this one if it doesn't catch you in the first 40 pages, as it takes some time to really ramp up.

I will never see the human eye the same way again. This story follows Ji-won, a college freshman whose family falls apart when her father leaves abruptly. As she tries to hold herself and her family together, Ji-won's mother brings her new boyfriend George into their lives. This begins Ji-won's downward spiral and obsession with consuming human eyes. I could not put this book down, there were so many parts of this story that I could not figure out if what I was reading was a dream, or something that was actually happening. The descriptions of eyes will forever leave me scarred.
The author really wanted to highlight the fetishization of Asian women and did a great job at making the reader feel hurt and uncomfortable with the way Ji-won and others in the story were treated. The eye and body horror were incredible, and there were times I genuinely felt queasy reading this.
The feminism and racism felt a little heavy handed at times, I do wish there was more subtly there.
I will definitely be reading more from this author! Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

Rarely do I have so much fun with a book this gorey and gross. Ji-won as a protagonist was the perfect mix of sheltered and protective to make her so unhinged that I fell a little bit in love. Monika Kim’s descriptions of the acts that take place are visceral and bloody and I can’t wait to read more from her.

My biggest criticism is that Alexis felt a bit like a nothing character and I wish she had more to do in the story. Otherwise I loved this book and if you enjoy bloody gross horror I think you will too. Thank you to NetGalley and Erewhon Books for my ARC!

I was so excited for this ever since I saw the cover and I was definitely not disappointed. I appreciate how extremely explicit in the description of the gory parts it was as well as how well the tension and the sense of dread was unraveling.

“If there’s a monster in this apartment, it’s me.”

Readers will never eat cherry tomatoes again. Or hard-boiled eggs.
Following our narrator, Ji-won, through her graphic eyeball feasting, the reader is constantly questioning what is real and true versus what is just another nightmare. Monika Kim gives the color blue its own personality in a story about family, race, culture, gore, and insatiable desires. An absent father, a man-obedient mother, and their two daughters who try their best to keep their mother’s emotions in balance. Ji-won’s devotion to her family propels her through an obsessive downward spiral; to save her family and to satisfy her hunger for blue eyes. Kim does such an excellent job establishing this family’s dynamic from beginning to the end that you will feel stuck in their apartment with them.

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The Eyes Are The Best Part is a contemporary horror about the making of a serial killer that can’t stop thinking about eating salty, tangy, juicy blue eyes.

Ji-won, a Korean-American girl that has just started her first year of uni, has just had her life turned upside down: her father left the family, leaving a grieving wife and two heartbroken daughters to fend for themselves; her friends don’t talk to her anymore, and her grades are slipping.

In order to bring luck to their family, their mother shares with them an old Korean belief, that of gaining luck by eating the eye of a fish. The first page of the book opens on this scene, and as Ji-won and her sister gag and moan at the sole idea, their mother pops an eye in her mouth.

Ji-won’s mother starts dating again, soon after the separation, and she introduces her sexist boyfriend with an Asian fetish to her daughters: this is when Ji-won starts dreaming about his eyes, and she feels a sudden pang of hunger.

The novel is an enjoyable read, and it’s very easy to breeze through; it’s extremely explicit in the description of the gory parts (just imagining the consistency of eating eyes makes me feel a bit queasy, and the author goes in depth in those descriptions) which i appreciated a lot — the point of horror is to dismay and create a sense of disgust, after all. This heavy handedness, though, is present even in all the other scenes that I would have preferred had been a little bit more subtle; I fear the author didn’t really trust the reader to pick up on the sexism and racism of the villanous characters, and decided to display them with blaring signs. But I guess the intent was to make the reader feel exactly as the protagonist, because I found the micro-aggressions Jiwon and her familt have to withstand very grating — no wonder she wants to kill people, I kind of get her.

The ending left me a bit unfazed, but still the book is a solid read and I’d recommend it to someone that likes revenge stories, body horror and some truly disgusting (in a very positive way) vore.

Access to the ARC acquired thanks to NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.