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A review by iam
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
3.25
This was a a great, atmospheric and truly creepy read that passed by in a flash, and while I greatly enjoyed it for the majority of the time, I had some mixed feelings at the end.
Content warnings include: murder, mutilation, cannibalism (eyes, unsurprisingly), violence, gore, drugging, fetishization, racism, gaslighting; mentions of divorce, cheating.
There were two layers of unsettling to this book. The first is born from the protagonist being a young Asian woman who is, along with her family, including her younger underage sister, being sexualized, fetishized, objectified and underestimated by multiple (white) men in her life. That everpresent and constant awareness of not being seen as an equal, but as a desirable object, was so creepy and there was an underlying threat in almost every interaction.
The other unsettling part was that, despite the creepy men, for the most part, Ji-won, the 18-year-old protagonist is the perpetrator of most of the gruesome crimes. We read the entire book from her perspective and while it starts out normal enough, it quickly becomes clear that she is far from a reliable narrator, and that she may not be such a good person after all. She is smart and protective of her family, but the things she does in order to protect them (and herself) slowly start to escalate (or have been, in fact, already been over-the-top even before the book started.)
For a big chunk of the book I was rooting for her. I'm not sure what changed, if it was me or if the book was deliberately shifting, but towards the end I was no longer cheering quite so much about what Ji-won was (planning on) doing. I do think the book deliberately humanizes the creeps, while also never loosing sight of what makes them creeps. But while the creeps were written to be more human, it almost felt like Ji-won turned less so, or I guess more removed from her humanity both through her actions and thoughts.
While the book focusses on Ji-won's unravelling, and her actions slowly escalating, I did not entirely follow that plot. There is a reveal towards the end that I thought explained things, but it ultimately felt completely meaningless because it changed nothing. Maybe that was the intention, but it left me a bit confused about what I was supposed to take from it. I felt like I was missing something. That may be on me, not on the book, though?
That aside, I also found that my suspension of disbelieve was beginning to get more and more strained towards the end. Rooting for Ji-won or not, I found myself a bit baffled by the consequences (or lack thereof) of her actions. I may be completely wrong, but I found myself wondering how noone was asking the questions I was. That may have been deliberate, but it ultimately made it less believable and sastisfying to read to me.
Equally dissatisfying was how some plot threads that felt relevant and important amounted to nothing. Again, they may have been deliberately places as misdirection, but to me it felt like forgotten potential.
All of these flaws may all be down to my personal reading experience or me missing something, and for the most part I did have a great time with the book. I heard several people describe the book as slow, but I was almost flying through it while reading. I think the combination of being so entrenched in a character's head, combined with the short chapters and visceral writing, really engaged me. I think I read the entire book in less than 4 hours total, it sucked me in so much.
Overall, a thrilling psychological horror that is very captivating, a great lense of oppression and sexualization of Asian women, with a dream-like quality to it while also feeling very grounded in reality, that looses a bit of its coherence towards the end.
Content warnings include: murder, mutilation, cannibalism (eyes, unsurprisingly), violence, gore, drugging, fetishization, racism, gaslighting; mentions of divorce, cheating.
There were two layers of unsettling to this book. The first is born from the protagonist being a young Asian woman who is, along with her family, including her younger underage sister, being sexualized, fetishized, objectified and underestimated by multiple (white) men in her life. That everpresent and constant awareness of not being seen as an equal, but as a desirable object, was so creepy and there was an underlying threat in almost every interaction.
The other unsettling part was that, despite the creepy men, for the most part, Ji-won, the 18-year-old protagonist is the perpetrator of most of the gruesome crimes. We read the entire book from her perspective and while it starts out normal enough, it quickly becomes clear that she is far from a reliable narrator, and that she may not be such a good person after all. She is smart and protective of her family, but the things she does in order to protect them (and herself) slowly start to escalate (or have been, in fact, already been over-the-top even before the book started.)
For a big chunk of the book I was rooting for her. I'm not sure what changed, if it was me or if the book was deliberately shifting, but towards the end I was no longer cheering quite so much about what Ji-won was (planning on) doing. I do think the book deliberately humanizes the creeps, while also never loosing sight of what makes them creeps. But while the creeps were written to be more human, it almost felt like Ji-won turned less so, or I guess more removed from her humanity both through her actions and thoughts.
While the book focusses on Ji-won's unravelling, and her actions slowly escalating, I did not entirely follow that plot. There is a reveal towards the end that I thought explained things, but it ultimately felt completely meaningless because it changed nothing. Maybe that was the intention, but it left me a bit confused about what I was supposed to take from it. I felt like I was missing something. That may be on me, not on the book, though?
That aside, I also found that my suspension of disbelieve was beginning to get more and more strained towards the end. Rooting for Ji-won or not, I found myself a bit baffled by the consequences (or lack thereof) of her actions. I may be completely wrong, but I found myself wondering how noone was asking the questions I was. That may have been deliberate, but it ultimately made it less believable and sastisfying to read to me.
Equally dissatisfying was how some plot threads that felt relevant and important amounted to nothing. Again, they may have been deliberately places as misdirection, but to me it felt like forgotten potential.
All of these flaws may all be down to my personal reading experience or me missing something, and for the most part I did have a great time with the book. I heard several people describe the book as slow, but I was almost flying through it while reading. I think the combination of being so entrenched in a character's head, combined with the short chapters and visceral writing, really engaged me. I think I read the entire book in less than 4 hours total, it sucked me in so much.
Overall, a thrilling psychological horror that is very captivating, a great lense of oppression and sexualization of Asian women, with a dream-like quality to it while also feeling very grounded in reality, that looses a bit of its coherence towards the end.