The Eyes Are the Best Part

by Monika Kim

1 minute read

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By Shannon Carlin

November 13, 2024 8:22 AM EST

Monika Kim’s inventive debut novel, The Eyes Are the Best Part, begins with teenage protagonist Ji-won’s well-manicured mom expertly plucking the eye from her fish at dinner and swallowing it with great aplomb. In their Korean culture, her mom explains, eating a fish’s eye is considered good luck. Ji-won could use all the luck she can get. Weeks after her father suddenly walks out on them, her mother takes up with a creepy white man whose blue eyes Ji-won now dreams of devouring. In this terrifying tale of misogyny, Asian fetishization, and cannibalism, the struggling college freshman soon finds herself overcome with rage, fantasizing about killing not only her mom’s boyfriend, but also any other man who dares wrong her.

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