I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Eyes Are The Best Part Published by Kensington Books on June 25, 2024 Genres: Horror
Pages: 278
Format: ARC
Goodreads
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.
My Review:
This was meant to be a creepy horror story, okay? That’s what I wanted. Now … it wasn’t a complete failure in that department but it also didn’t satisfy me in the way I was hoping.
This is definitely more of a character study than a plot-heavy book. We read from the perspective of Ji-won, whose father has abandoned their family for another woman. Soon, Ji-won’s Umma starts to date another man, who turns out to be an Asian-fetishizing asshole.
And in the midst of all of this turmoil, Ji-won starts to become obsessed with eyeballs. Not just any eyeballs, but eyeballs with blue irises.
The complex family dynamics were really well thought out and nuanced. I liked the way the author peeled back Ji-won’s layers, showing how her self-sabotaging tendencies and her own negative traits are what leads to her downfall in many of her interactions. Ji-won as a character really stood out to me, and this is what kept me reading this book until the end.
However, there was absolutely no nuance when it came to any of the other characters. They were simply caricatures meant to fulfil their task and that’s it. Their lack of depth and dimension made it hard for me to connect with any of them. It also made the interactions between Ji-won and these other characters feel surface-level.
The pacing of this novel is another major issue. While the horror elements are gory and creepy and well-written, it is bogged down by boring dialogue, dream sequences that seem to ramble on forever, and repetitive summaries of events that the reader has already witnessed. The fact that most of the horror bits actually take place in the last 30-40% of the story means readers really have to push themselves to get to the “good stuff” – which is itself short-lived.
The story contains some powerful messages on family, grief, and racism but I’m not sure if the themes were conveyed as well as they could have been. Sometimes, less is more. Overall, this was an interesting take on serial killers, with much of the focus being on character development to the detriment of the plot/pacing and the actual horror. I’m giving this 3 stars because it tried to do something unique and, despite its slow pacing, it kept my interest until the very end.
Happy reading ~