“The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim started pretty interesting. The cover alone intrigued me as I am an avid horror reader. This is her first novel, and I was excited to see what would await. Unfortunately, this left much to be desired for what I look for in a typical horror novel.
Before I jump into my review, here are all the trigger warnings I found while reading…
– Cannibalism
– Stalking
– Sexism
– Racism
– PTSD (war)
– Infidelity
– Food insecurity
If any of these trigger you, please do not read this novel. Moving along, this novel felt like a slow burn at first. I hoped it would deliver once things got scarier and to the horror parts, but it just took way too long to get there. It never came as quickly as I wanted, and ultimately, I wanted way more horror.
It’s an okay story, and I appreciated the whole family dynamic about what happens when your parents have marital issues, but this was too heavy on the story and not enough on the horror. The scary parts were very well written, which is a shame since I wish more of that had happened to redeem this novel. I credit Kim for a refreshing new take on "eye horror" because I have never read such disgusting, creepy, and insane takes on eyeballs. These parts were fantastic, but got lost in endless dialogue, dreams, texting, and other things that messed up the overall pacing.
I also didn’t connect with a single character. I felt that the character development needed improvement in the grand scheme of things. Several times, things got boring while waiting for something to happen. The dream sequences also got confusing and felt out of place. This would have been significantly better if this were a more straightforward story that got right to it, grabbed you, and never let you go. Instead, it’s a few decent horror parts here and there, too much dialogue, and too much family stuff.
The novel didn’t get good until the last 30%, which frustrated me because I hoped for a huge payoff or an insane plot twist at the end. Nope, just more of the same, straight to the ending, which was lackluster and predictable. I saw it coming a mile away, and it just left me feeling like this needed more time to be refined and polished to deliver a better horror story, with eye horror as the main focus, bringing it all together for a memorable read.
I give “The Eyes Are the Best Part” by Monika Kim a 2/5 for having a creative spin on taking eye horror to a whole new level I’ve never read before. This novel needed to be much scarier, have better character development so readers could be invested in the main characters and the protagonist, and include more backstory as parts of the story unraveled. The pacing is bad, and many parts feel out of place. It gets good, then it fizzles out. A scary part finally happens, and we go back to endless dialogue, texting, or repeating things the reader already knows happened. This was mostly a dud, since the horror needed to be amped up big time.
by LTJ81