The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim

The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monika Kim follows a family that breaks down when the father and husband leave for another woman. This leads Ji-Won's and Ji-Hyun's mum to enter a relationship with an American man who seems to be a bit of a paedo who likes to sleep with many Asian ladies but has amazing, luxurious blue eyes which the one character cannot help but fantasise about eating ever since her mother encouraged her to eat a fish eye. This book is full of romance, friendships and horrific murders, all so the one responsible can harvest the eyes she requires before shifting the blame.

This pleasantly terrifying and horrific psychological novel scared me on the edge of my seat. This is amazing as this is only my second proper horror novel, the first being a Stephen King book, one of the most boring books I have ever read and did not scare me in any way. The book was well written and, from the middle to the end, was very gripping indeed. The horror scenes came in the form of real lifetime events and nightmares, which initially seemed very real but were all very successful at causing fright. They seem to have been very well thought out, providing multiple dimensions of horror, which made the reader both resent the one character but also sympathise with them. It was also interesting to read about murder from a different perspective and written as a horror rather than a murder mystery for a change.

The one thing I disliked about this book was how long it took to get to the horror part. Much of the start of the book was not the most interesting, even if it provided very useful context for the rest of the book and helped develop the story, including why what happened actually happened. Therefore, seeing more horror scenes from the start would have been nice. But other than that, this was a really good horror!

Altogether, I rate this book 3 stars, making it a good book because it became a very gripping and effective horror story, which gave me a fright, which was exactly what I was after. This may not have been the same kind of fright one could expect from a horror movie but it was still great to have this reaction. I would definitely recommend this book, although it may not be the best if you are particularly squeamish! I  would like to thank both NetGalley and Octopus Publishing for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this book in return for an honest book review.