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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.

Violence, body horror, murder, cannibalism, stalking, and descriptions of off-the-page war trauma.

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 readers mesmerized and craving more.

Don't just take our word for it...

“A tense, harrowing nightmare of a novel. Monika Kim gives us unraveling sanity, grotesque obsession, and the suffocating ignorance of toxic men. A terrific debut! I can’t wait to see what she does next!”
– Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of The House of Last Resort and Road of Bones

“A book that does more than grab hold; this debut will impale you. An obsessive, undefinable wonder, Monika Kim shows that you only taste what you’re willing to take. Suspenseful horror that is love at first sight.”
– Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Queen of Teeth

“I savored every moment of this suspensefully deranged tale, all the way up to its bloodcurdling conclusion. Monika Kim is an exciting new entrant to the genre, and I am ravenous for what she’s planning to serve up next.”
– Victor Manibo, author of The Sleepless and Escape Velocity

Taste the very first page

Umma tells me that the eyes are the best part.

I watch as she leans over the dinner table, her dark hair tucked neatly behind her ears, her manicured fingers working quickly and deftly at the fish on the plate in front of her. She’s done this so many times that by now, she could do with her eyes closed. First, she splits the fish in half, using her metal chopsticks to break the body open at the top, where the head meets the dorsal rings, revealing a neat row of tiny, almost invisible bones. The flesh is still steaming hot, but my mother doesn’t seem to feel anything at all. She tugs at the spine, which comes away whole, and sets it aside before returning her attention to the soft white flesh.

When she’s done, the fish is completely picked apart, its bones placed in a neat pile on the paper napkin next to her plate. Umma looks up at Ji-hyun and me, a smile spreading across her face. We know what she’s going to say, but still we squirm with discomfort.

“Who wants the eye?” she asks, gesturing toward the plate. The fish gapes at up, staring blankly.

June 2024