The Eyes Are the Best Part

De: Monika Kim

Narrado por: Jaine Ye

Crying in H-Mart meets My Sister, the Serial Killer in this feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.
Ji-won’s life tumbles into disarray in the wake of her Appa’s extramarital affair and subsequent departure. Her mother, distraught. Her younger sister, hurt and confused. Her college freshman grades, failing. Her dreams, horrifying… yet enticing.
In them, Ji-won walks through bloody rooms full of eyes. Succulent blue eyes. Salivatingly blue eyes. Eyes the same shape and shade as George’s, who is Umma’s obnoxious new boyfriend. George has already overstayed his welcome in her family’s claustrophobic apartment. He brags about his puffed-up consulting job, ogles Asian waitresses while dining out, and acts condescending toward Ji-won and her sister as if he deserves all of Umma’s fawning adoration. No, George doesn’t deserve anything from her family. Ji-won will make sure of that.
For no matter how many victims accumulate around her campus or how many people she must deceive and manipulate, Ji-won’s hunger and her rage deserve to be sated.
A brilliantly inventive, subversive novel about a young woman unraveling, Monika Kim’s The Eyes Are the Best Part is a story of a family falling apart and trying to find their way back to each other, marking a bold new voice in horror that will leave listeners mesmerized and craving more.

©2024 Monika Kim (P)2024 Recorded Books

Weirdly interesting

Tightly woven story with a pleasant ring of a young intelligent Asian girl’s Power in getting her own justice done . However, the reader is left saddened with Jeffrey’s fate!

I ate this book up.

Definitely on of my top reads this year 5 stars. Gruesome, loved the writing, the suspense and the turns.

Brilliant work

I enjoyed the story and the narration was pleasant. I increased the speed due to personal preference, but this was nicely done.

slow burn, but well worth it

Many times throughout the story I almost DNF. It's a very slow burn, with a lot of exposition. But hanging in there til the end is worth it. The end ramps up in the short last chapters, wrapping (almost) everything up. Definitely worth a listen if you're wondering what to spend your monthly credit(s) on. Though there are a few other titles more worthy of a listen (Maeve Fly comes to mind).

There is, at the time of my writing/listening, a lot of hype about this being scary and graphic, but I feel it may be over hyped in some cases. Nevertheless, it's worth a pick up / listen.

monika never takes her foot off the gas

definitely the best psychological horror i've ever read, certainly the most well-written villains i've ever read. i will be recommending this to everyone! i am also a sucker for inversions of all kinds, and this is full of thematic inversions. (even something simple like the role cannibalism plays is several types of inverted - not only does it flip the literal colonialist notion of predator/prey, it also flips the euphemistic [sexual] meanings of cannibalism.) the male villains are absolutely infuriating to read, which means they're perfectly written and absolutely true to life, with no exaggerations, that you will be put in mind of the georges and a jefferys you've met too. another inversion is that there's no release - at the end, there's a point at which most books would pull back the veil, say 'oh it's all fake, see she's better now' and it's the exact opposite lmao. the tl;dr is i can't wait to read more monika kim!

a note about the audiobook performer: if you listen with over-ear headphones like i did, you can hear her equipment turning off and on between takes. it's a little distracting bc it happens several times per chapter. she also has a pronounced midwest accent which may or may not bother you. (e.g. she says "bag" like "beg" etc.)

Phenomenal!!

Wow!! Just WOW! This was the unhinged I didn’t know I needed in life. Absolutely loved every second of this wild ride.

Gruesome, but thrilling

i tried not to read the synopsis before the book so I went in blind. This book is a wild ride. Be prepared for gruesome and gross. The charachters were dimensional and felt like people you might know. The narration was perfect, though I noticed some sounds (pressing record, maybe) that were distracting at times. I doubt I will ever read this again, but it was a thrilling ride.

The story gave me a very squeezey feeling.

I like the characterization of the main character (specifically her fall to darkness) but I dislike how the story (vocals) sometimes "jumped" or "skipped" (this is probably an issue with the recording).

Well written

It was a good story …well written but I really didn’t like the end. It Disappointed me

Sensational

One of the best books I’ve listened to in years. There isn’t anything else out there like this and I couldn’t stop listening. Truly a masterpiece!