The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim Summary

The Eyes Are the Best Part is a feminist psychological horror novel about a Korean American college student who becomes obsessed with eating white men's eyes after consuming a fish eye during a traditional Korean dinner. This debut novel by Monika Kim explores the unraveling of a young woman and her family, blending cultural traditions with dark psychological themes to create a subversive tale about female rage and identity.

Monika Kim is a second-generation Korean American author living in Los Angeles's Koreatown. She graduated from UC Davis with a B.A. in Communication and works for an environmental agency focused on environmental justice. Kim learned about eating fish eyes and Korean superstitions from her mother, who immigrated from Seoul in 1985. The Eyes Are the Best Part is her debut novel, published in June 2024.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is ideal for readers who enjoy feminist horror, psychological thrillers, and stories exploring the Asian American experience. Fans of authors like Cathy Park Hong, Min Jin Lee, and Shirley Jackson will appreciate Kim's subversive approach. This novel suits readers interested in cultural identity, intergenerational trauma, and darkly inventive narratives that challenge traditional horror tropes while addressing contemporary social issues.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is worth reading for its unique blend of Korean American cultural elements with psychological horror and feminist themes. The novel has been praised as "brilliant," "provocative," and "deeply unsettling," and became a Sunday Times bestseller. Kim's fresh perspective on the serial killer origin story, combined with her exploration of family dynamics and cultural identity, offers a compelling and original reading experience.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is a feminist psychological horror novel. It combines elements of literary fiction with horror, creating what critics describe as a modern horror story that incorporates family drama and cultural commentary. The book fits within the growing genre of folk horror from the Asian diaspora, exploring how cultural traditions and superstitions intersect with contemporary psychological terror and social critique.

In The Eyes Are the Best Part, eating fish eyes serves as both a cultural tradition and a catalyst for the protagonist's dark obsession. This Korean culinary practice, passed down from the protagonist's immigrant mother, triggers an escalating fixation on consuming white men's eyes. The act symbolizes cultural inheritance, the consumption of power, and a twisted form of reclaiming agency, transforming a traditional family ritual into something sinister and transgressive.

The Eyes Are the Best Part incorporates Korean superstitions, traditional dining practices, and the immigrant experience throughout its narrative. Monika Kim draws from her mother's teachings about fish eyes and cultural beliefs from Seoul. The novel explores second-generation Korean American identity in Los Angeles's Koreatown, examining intergenerational dynamics, cultural expectations, and how traditional practices shape contemporary experiences. These elements ground the horror in authentic cultural specificity.

The Eyes Are the Best Part examines feminist themes through its portrayal of a female serial killer in the making, subverting traditional gender narratives in horror. Monika Kim explores female rage, agency, and resistance against patriarchal structures. The novel addresses the humiliation and disempowerment experienced by immigrant families, particularly women, and transforms these experiences into a dark feminist reckoning that challenges readers to sympathize with transgressive female violence.

The Eyes Are the Best Part is considered a "good for her" novel because it centers female revenge and empowerment through darkly unconventional means. The protagonist's violent obsession becomes a form of reclaiming power in a world that has diminished her and her family. This subgenre celebrates morally complex female characters who refuse victimhood, making readers root for protagonists despite—or because of—their transgressive actions against oppressive systems.

The protagonist in The Eyes Are the Best Part is motivated by a complex mix of cultural inheritance, family trauma, and desire for power. After eating a fish eye during a Korean meal, she develops an obsession with consuming white men's eyes, driven by witnessing her family's humiliation and seeking twisted retribution. Her motivation reflects deeper themes of intergenerational pain, the immigrant experience, and a distorted quest for agency in a society that marginalizes her identity.

The Eyes Are the Best Part portrays the Korean American experience through the lens of second-generation identity, cultural displacement, and familial expectations. Monika Kim explores the shame children feel witnessing their parents' humiliation by white Americans, the tension between tradition and assimilation, and the psychological toll of navigating two cultures. The horror elements amplify real experiences of marginalization, making visible the often-invisible violence faced by Asian Americans.

The Eyes Are the Best Part centers on a family falling apart, examining how intergenerational trauma, cultural expectations, and external pressures fracture relationships. The novel explores parent-child dynamics within immigrant families, particularly the burden children carry witnessing their parents' struggles. Kim depicts how family secrets, shame, and unspoken pain accumulate across generations, ultimately manifesting in the protagonist's psychological unraveling and violent impulses as the family structure disintegrates.