The Eyes Are the Best Part

The Eyes Are the Best Part is a 2024 novel by American author Monica Kim. Narrated in the first person by Ji-won, a college student and the daughter of Korean immigrants, the novel focuses on her psychological decline as she attends college following her father’s abandonment of her family, exploring themes such as Gender Expectations and the Performance of Femininity, Consumption as Power, and The False Promise of Assimilation.

This guide references the Kindle version of the novel.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of racism, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, mental illness, self-harm, graphic violence, cursing, death, physical abuse, illness, substance use, suicidal ideation, and emotional abuse.

Plot Summary

Ji-won is a teenage girl and college freshman living with her mother, Umma, and younger sister, Ji-hyun, in Los Angeles. At the novel’s outset, Umma eats a fish’s eye, declaring it the best part of the meal, which disgusts her daughters. The family is still reeling from their abandonment by the girls’ father, Appa. Two weeks previously, Umma heard keys at the front door and briefly believed it was Appa returning, only to discover it was a neighbor. This was when Umma began eating fish eyes, which she claims bring luck.

Overhearing an argument, Ji-won discovers the true reason for her father’s departure: He left the family for another woman. Umma has taken to waiting sadly by the front door for Appa to come home. This behavior reminds Ji-won of stories from her mother’s past in 1970s South Korea, where Umma’s family nearly starved, subsisting on single bowls of porridge daily. After their neighbor’s daughter died of starvation, Umma’s parents left their children in search of work, leaving them in the care of the eldest sibling, Ha-joon. During a frigid winter, the children became sick with fever in their uninsulated cabin. While the other siblings followed their parents in search of work, Umma stayed behind, surviving on foraged food, snow, bark, and rats until her parents returned the following fall.

After some time, Umma starts dating George, a white man she meets at her job at a Korean grocery store. Before this, Umma shared her views on dating, citing an article claiming white men make better partners than Korean men. When her daughters challenged these generalizations, Umma expressed regret about not having married a white man instead of their father.

The daughters’ first meeting with George reveals troubling behavior. He struggles with pronouncing the daughters’ names correctly and insists on using their initials. During dinner, he openly ogles the server (who is of Asian ancestry), controls the ordering, and blatantly displays his wealth through a wallet filled with $100 bills. After dinner, he forces Umma to sit on a wet bench and laughs at her discomfort; additionally, he inappropriately stares at Ji-won’s chest.

Ji-won’s life in college is complicated by her relationship with Geoffrey, a classmate who displays possessive behavior, particularly regarding her friendship with a student named Alexis, which develops romantic overtones. Meanwhile, George’s presence in their home starts to become intolerable, with him staying overnight and making both daughters uncomfortable with his predatory stares. Additionally, Ji-won’s past relationships with her high school friends Jenny, Sarah, and Han-byeol return to haunt her. Unable to join them at the University of California, Berkeley, due to her grades, Ji-won sabotaged their friendship with one another through manipulation, including stealing Han-byeol’s grandmother’s ring and framing Sarah for the theft. Though she successfully drove wedges between the friends, they eventually discovered Ji-won’s deception and left for college without her just weeks before her father’s departure.

The story also provides extensive background about Appa’s life. Born into a poor farming family in Busan during the Japanese occupation, he educated himself by reading discarded newspapers and gained admission to Seoul National University. Despite his academic success, he struggled to find good employment and moved to California on a friend’s recommendation. There, he met and quickly married Umma, purchased a dry-cleaning business, and later lost his investment money to his friend Min-ho’s gambling debts.

Ji-won develops an obsession with blue eyes, particularly focusing on George’s eyes. When she comes across the body of an unhoused man, she cuts his eyes out of his skull and eats them, feeling a deep pleasure at consuming them. Eating blue eyes becomes an obsession, and Ji-won goes on to murder two men near her college campus, consuming their eyes each time. Simultaneously, she works to sabotage George’s life after discovering his relationship with a woman named Jen. She destroys his work presentation, replacing it with compromising photos, and systematically undermines his relationship with Umma. Geoffrey’s behavior also becomes increasingly concerning. He stalks Ji-won and eventually steals her backpack, which contains evidence of her murders.

Ultimately, Ji-won attempts to murder George by drugging him with crushed Ambien, but he awakens and attacks her. Geoffrey, who has followed her, misses the beginning of the interaction but intervenes by striking George repeatedly with a rock. Ji-won is hospitalized following this, where doctors discover and remove a brain tumor.

During her hospital stay, Ji-won learns that her father is expecting a male baby with his new partner. Despite the tumor’s removal, her homicidal tendencies persist. She murders George in his hospital room by poisoning him with crushed oxycodone and then consumes his eyes. She manipulates events to frame Geoffrey, knowing the previous murder weapon is at his apartment, providing false evidence of his participation in Ji-won’s previous murders.

Throughout these events, Umma continues preparing for her wedding to George, creating paper flowers for decorations even as their relationship deteriorates. The novel concludes with Umma mourning George’s death despite everything that occurred. Ji-won feels protective of her mother and sister while planning to violently confront her father, whom she considers ultimately responsible for their family’s troubles.