Korean American debut novelist Monika Kim's addictive creepfest, The Eyes Are the Best Part, opens with quite a list of content warnings--in tiny type: "contains depictions of violence, eye horror, body horror, murder, cannibalism, descriptions of war trauma (non-graphic, starvation), stalking, sexism, and racism (Asian objectification)." The next-level shockers just keep coming, while the cleverly plotted manipulations command don't-look-away attention.
First-year college student Ji-won Lim lives in a tiny apartment in Los Angeles, Calif., with Umma (Mom) and 15-year-old younger sister, Ji-hyun. Two weeks ago, Appa (Dad) suddenly abandoned the family for another woman. After reading "an interesting article," Umma announces that white men are the best, and Korean men the worst, for dating. She's so convinced that three months later, she admits to the girls she's been dating George, a white customer at the Korean grocery store where she works. Ji-won instantly recognizes him as a pretentious middle-aged white man with an Asian fetish. Something about his blue eyes, though, quickly becomes an obsession. When George's alleged plumbing problems bring him into their home to stay, Ji-won's nightmarish disgust will not be contained.
Kim is certainly a compact writer. Woven into the visceral violence are multiple topics--cleverly meant to temper and distract--including post-Korean War economic and immigration history, failures of the American dream, familial dysfunctions, white patriarchy, gender inequity, and the perils of showboating. Ji-won is absolutely not a reliable narrator, but her desperate tenacity to tell her own story will make readers believe. --Terry Hong