Books like The Eyes Are the Best Part — picked by fans

Based on the title alone, I knew Yi’s debut novel would hit me like a crossbow to the heart. “Y/N” Is a prevalent shorthand for a particular kind of self-insert fan fiction, and having grown up in online fandom spaces, I have a lot of nostalgia for (and now plenty of necessary distance from) the passion that often explodes within and beyond those communities.

And still, I wasn’t prepared for the journey that Yi took me on. Nominally about one woman's spiraling obsession with a Korean pop idol, Y/N charts the inexplicable journey between a “regular person” and a “fan" before morphing into something sinisterly, beautifully, and singularly unhinged.

This book breaks all the rules by being the sweetest, most empathetic, and heartfelt romance I’ve read in a long time, but without the romance. It portrays the importance of platonic love between two aromantic and asexual students who crave community, friendship, and understanding and find it in each other.

The social media posts and comment threads make it such an immersive reading experience. As I was reading, I truly felt like I was in their world. I had a smile on my face the entire time and a feeling of warmth, love, and acceptance. When I was done, I immediately called my best friends to tell them I loved them.

This book features Princess Ying Yue, a character who defies numerous conventions, including traditional gender norms and the expectation that royalty must prioritize duty over love. I adored the complex dynamic between Ying and her two princes; I really couldn’t predict which direction the love triangle would go from the outset. There were so many twists and turns, but everything came together in a satisfying end.

This book was so creepy, eerie, and unsettling, yet beautifully written and carefully crafted with a rare elegance. The worldbuilding completely enamored me, and the creepy Mirror World is something that I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

This book is full of rule-breakers, but not in the way you’d think. Rhea and her friends try to combat gentrification in their South L.A. neighborhood in the most unconventional way imaginable by inventing a fake gang; however, they are soon blamed for a very real murder.

I lived in West Baltimore for a time and saw the effects of gentrification taking over my neighborhood even in the short two years that I was there, so this book really resonated with me on a personal level. The premise reminded me of those memes of people claiming to shoot out the windows every few months to keep the rent low. While it’s a joke, there is a very real fear behind it, and this is a complex issue that Adia tackles with such a fresh voice and nuanced approach.

For me, one of the greatest feats a writer can achieve is to make an unpleasant character eminently readable. Susan’s A Person of Interest is just that book – the lead here, an Asian math professor simply named Lee, is never exactly identified. We don’t know what country he comes from, and we don’t even learn his first name. A prickly sort, when a colleague of his gets blown to bits by a bomb (echoes of the Unabomber), it’s no wonder that he eventually becomes the title of the novel to the police. Also a literary writer like Don Lee, this novel is alive with character and brims with one dazzling line after another.

Horror-themed summer camp for Black queer girls? Yes, I don’t mind if I do!

Reading Ellis’ book is like returning to the summer going into my junior year of high school and the angst and drama of summer camp, only with the addition of woods and crappy cabins where the danger is very real and at least one camp counselor has an agenda that involves her genetic legacy of being the daughter of a convicted serial killer.

Temple, our angry (peer) counselor, is on a mission to find her mother’s corpse, even though she doesn’t buy that her dad actually killed her. The novel gives me a real Friday the 13th vibe, mixed with a tangled family history that rivals Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches series. I can't refuse a complicated family mess, and this has it… a lot!

Read this book while you’re taking a break from a solo hike… show more.

This is an older dark romantic suspense but well worth the read, especially if you like conflict.

A serial killer and two wounded souls. The conflict and suspense are off the pages. It is an older book, but I re-read at least once a year. Superb writing. Superb storyline. Jack and Laurel are broken in different ways.

Jack is the bad boy you want to cheer for and Laurel the wounded former prosecutor who sees the good that Jack believes doesn’t exist. All this whle a serial killer plays cat and mouse with Laurel.

Bad Jack wants no one to care for but can’t help being drawn to Laurel.

This is a book that simply cannot be siloed into one genre, and it resulted in many precious hours of lost sleep.

I was captivated by the story’s ability to shift effortlessly between a serial killer thriller and an unrequited love story spanning four decades in the lives of an artistic would-be pirate and his beekeeper-turned-FBI agent best friend.

What I loved most about this book were the extremes the author went to regarding 3-dimensional characterization. While there are several prevalent characters throughout, no two are alike; each has his/her own ambitions and pitfalls, and all eventually become interwoven in an explosive climax and an immensely satisfying, full-circle ending that left me thinking long after I put the book down.

Laymon provides the perfect mix of psychological horror and serial killer madness in this cult novel that is part murder mystery and part survival horror. In Island, a family boat trip to a remote island goes horribly awry when someone starts offing family members one by one. It will leave you shocked and satisfied with its overwhelming tension and disturbing ending.

Families. What can I say? They can be weird beasts, and none less so than the family of detective Eva Rae Thomas.
A father who kidnapped her sister from a grocery store when they were children. A brother she didn’t know existed. Ignored by her family for decades, can she refuse their call for help? Many would, in a case where nothing is as it seems.