The Eyes Are The Best Part Review

“…optic nerves sliding down my throat like spaghetti noodles.”

Jamie McCormick

Nov 03, 2024

Happy Sunday!

As a reminder, this is my last post before going on hiatus. I’ll see you again in December!

Today, we’re turning the page on our October book The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim 👁

***BIG SPOILER ALERTS FOR THIS ONE****

One Sentence Summary:

As her family life falls into disarray, a young Asian woman becomes obsessed with eating white men’s eyes

My Thoughts

This is the grossest and most memorable book I’ve read all year, but Brandon already wrote the best possible review:

I don’t have much to add, but I’ll try….

Starting with a few elements I didn’t like:

The dialogue
- I loved the writing throughout this book (more on that later), but occasionally the conversations felt stilted. At its core, this book is about a family unravelling, and - while the plot, prose, and interiority did a great job showcasing the messy relationship dynamics - the dialogue didn’t quite match.
The backstory about Ji-won’s high school friends
- I don’t think this plotline was necessary. Sure, we learn she has a proclivity to psychological warfare, but I implore you to find me a teenage girl who doesn't…
The tumour
- This reveal initially made me really angry. I was worried we’d get an "It was just a dream”-style ending, which would have cheapened the whole book. Instead, we learn the tumour might be to blame, but Ji-won eats her mom’s boyfriend’s eyes anyway. I was ecstatic with that direction; HOWEVER, I wonder if we needed the tumour mentioned at all? I don’t know if it made her choice to kill George stronger, or if it was a distraction from her inevitable descent into eyeball-guzzling-serial-killer.

Now the good parts:

The Eyes Are The Best Part made up for any shortcomings with its creativity and general yuckiness.

This book was initially described to me as Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer, and it 100% delivered.

What I love about Crying in H-Mart is the use of food. Monika Kim made Korean dishes a huge fixture in this book as well. From descriptions of dinner to meals as central plot points to lines as simple as “..Ji-hyun curled up next to me like a cooked shrimp…” (pg 12), food is everywhere.

Of course, there’s also a horror 🤝 food element.

For example, we all know that blue is the best flavour of Gatorade.

It is also, apparently, the best flavour of eye…

At least according to Monika Kim, whose account of Ji-won eating eyes makes it really hard to believe that she hasn’t snacked on one at least once. If I have to be subjected to this paragraph, you do to:

“The eyeball is cool from being under the faucet for so long. A salty liquid trickles down my throat. The outside is crunchy cartilage. I jam it into my left cheek and bite down with my molars; jellylike matter explodes within my mouth.” (pg 163)

Side note: ‘squelch’ is now and forever banished from my vocabulary… UGH.

Beyond the literal eyeball-eating (fish or human), I loved how eye-shaped snacks became more and more prevalent. I laughed out loud when Ji-won brought cherry tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs for lunch…

Our girl was thirsting for some peepers.

Like any good horror, The Eyes Are The Best Part is about more than the spooky stuff. These two themes in particular really stood out:

Fetishization: Making a young Asian woman obsessed with white men’s eyes is just so so so brilliant — as is the book title!!!
“I am certain blue eyes would taste amazing, much better than brown ones. Especially George’s eyes. I have no scientific evidence to prove this, but to me there’s nothing appetizing about brown” (pg 99)
Female rage: Ji-won’s growing anger is palpable throughout. It impacts her relationship to herself:
- “I stare at my reflection in the graffitied mirror, expecting to see a monster, a demon, a killer, but it’s me. Just me.” (pg 162)
The way she sees her family:
“Hope is a terrible thing. Hope is my mother waiting by the front door for months. Hope is a table full of banchan, side dishes, carefully prepared by hand. Hope is my sister curled in my arms, her head resting against my shoulder asking, “Do you think he will come back?…”(pg 197)
And, ultimately, develops into this intense and quiet lust for retribution:
“…But hope is also George, crawling on the floor, collecting pieces of glass so small they are nearly invisible.” (pg 197)
I mean woah…
“Confuse him. Make him feel foolish. Men like him hate being wrong, hate being embarrassed, hate not being in control. Men like him don’t know what to do when that happens, and they resort to childish displays of anger, temper tantrums, sulking. In spite of this, he won’t be able to do a single thing about it because in the end he’s the one who is weak. The only power he has is the power you are willing to give him, and you give him nothing. Not a scrap.
By the time you’re done with him, he’lll be begging for mercy. Who is he if he can’t control you? Is he even a man anymore? It will seem like a relief when you give him a hand, even if that hand is holding a blade.
And when you take everything from him, you can say what hese men say about us: He was asking for it. He was begging for it. He must have wanted it, since he didn’t fight back” (pg 143)