Title: The Eyes are the Best Part
Author: Monika Kim
Publisher: Erewhon / Kensington Publishing
Year: 2024
Genre(s): Horror
Pages/Length: 278
Rating: 4 Star
Blurb/Synopsis: Ji-won’s Appa (father) has abandoned his family after an affair has lead to an opportunity of a new life. As Ji-won struggles with adjusting to new family dynamics and college life, her mental state begins to rapidly decline. An obsession with eyes begins to take over her thoughts and the actions and events that follow sends Ji-Won down a rabbit hole that she just might not be able to get out of.
Content/Trigger Warnings: Gore, Cannibalism, Fetishization of Asian Women
“….poison is everywhere, even in the places where you least expect it.”
I really loved the way Kim started the story with the abandonment Ji-Won experiences and the shift in family dynamics. Initially it seems this singular event, and the depression of her mother is the triggering event that leads into Ji-won’s decline.
“Now whenever I catch a whiff of peppermint, or hear the crinkle of plastic, I feel a small zap, an electric current that runs through my entire body. A reminder that I once had a father.”
“I don’t blame him. Maybe because I know what it’s like, to live a life so defined by want. That’s why I was able to recognize it in him - it was what I had been feeling for so long.”
The perspective into Ji-Won’s mental stability as the story unfolds is also very telling and always has you walking that line of has this person always been this way, or are the events that are unfolding causing the actions.
“I get it. As someone who has struggled with friendships my entire life, I really do understand. How many times have I felt a nagging possessiveness over my friends, watching as they grew closer to each other but not me?”
“In the end everyone leaves.”
The inclusion of fetishization and feminism, especially in the Asian community is also subtle focal point in the lives of all the characters.
“We girls are taught from an early age that we are demonstrably inferior to our male counterparts. We are smaller, weaker, stupider. When we succeed, it’s only because men allow us to.”
“By the time you’re done with him, he’ll 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 day what these 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.”
Of the other impactful points Kim includes, the developing friendship between Ji-Won and Alexis feels authentic, especially to those making friends later in life, and offers an outside perspective of a friend trying to help when someone is clearly suffering.
A big thanks to Between the Chapters, Erewhon, Monika Kim and Kensington Books for the Advanced Readers Copy of this book. Any quotes may differ from the final published copy.
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