“Hooked” by Asako Yuzuki is a gripping and honest novel that critiques how female friendships are constantly devalued, leading to isolation, dependency and the reinforcement of stereotypes. By analyzing how social media can take advantage of women who are victims of division and long for connection, Yuzuki’s story offers a refreshing take on how social media amplifies needs for validation, as well as the uncanny feeling of reassurance brought by someone on the internet having the same misfortunes or failures. “Hooked” feels like an open invitation for readers to reflect on realistic human behaviors that would otherwise be brushed off to avoid sinking into feelings of chagrin.

Originally published in Japan in 2015, “Hooked” became Asako Yuzuki’s second English translated book on March 15. Yuzuki’s first English translated novel “Butter” came out on April 16, 2024 after being released in Japan in 2017. Following its English debut, “Butter” won several awards, including the Waterstones Book of the Year 2024 and 2025 British Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was an international best seller. Because of Yuzuki’s previous success, “Hooked” was listed as one of the most anticipated books of 2026 by The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue and BBC.

The story follows two relatable 30-year-old women in Tokyo, Eriko and Shoko, who are just trying to get by and feel like they belong. Over thirty-eight chapters, “Hooked” alternates third-person perspectives between Eriko and Shoko, exploring both of their lives in depth individually.

Eriko is a picture-perfect businesswoman whose beauty is a talking point for anyone she encounters. She’s successful, independent and seems to have her whole life figured out through strict routine and staying busy. Meanwhile, Shoko is a housewife who builds a name for herself under the pseudonym Hallie B, writing for her humble self deprecating blog, “The Diary of Hallie B, The World’s Worst Wife.” By being realistic and unlike other wives and mothers who blog about the flawless parts of their lives, Shoko captivates women who want to feel better about themselves, including Eriko. When reading about Shoko’s seemingly laid-back life and effortless childless marriage, it’s difficult not to take on the same admiration.

Despite being attractive and put-together, Eriko has no hobbies or interests of her own and struggles with building friendships with other women. Out of desperation and a dying desire to have a woman she can bond with, Eriko uses Shoko’s blog as a coping mechanism to escape her everyday struggles with feeling alienated. Trying all of the foods Shoko eats, and watching all of the movies Shoko watches, Eriko’s dependency grows more into an obsession that she isn’t fully aware of, or doesn’t want to admit to.

After using context clues and analyzing “The Diary of Hallie B, The World’s Worst Wife,” Eriko figures out the cafe Shoko typically visits, and schemes a “chance meeting” where the two women “happen” to run into each other. In Eriko’s mind, this is the perfect setup for building a lifelong friendship with the woman she idolizes and sees herself in the most. When the two meet for the first time and get along well, Eriko romanticizes their relationship to be something way more than it was, especially after having a parasocial relationship with Shoko for quite some time. As the story goes on, their toxic relationship is explored through their conflicting differences, but also their harsh similarities and the fact that they reflect the worst in each other.

After Eriko experiences a friendship breakup with her close friend at 15, she ignores her destructive and manipulative nature out of fear that she could be the problem, or have any wrongdoings at all. Having a mother who does everything for her, Eriko expects the same thing out of her friends. If she isn’t the center of attention, she feels like nobody. Spending her life in a bubble of projecting her unhealthy behaviors onto others, especially other women, Eriko shields herself from the looming self-deprecation she works so hard to avoid.

Shoko holds herself in a similar bubble. Living unemployed alongside her supermarket-manager husband Kensuke in a one-bedroom apartment, Shoko never finds herself going the extra mile. Serving her husband pre-packaged meals and maintaining an untidy home, she takes advantage of knowing Kensuke is content with her being “weirdly lacking in ambition.” Through the comfort of knowing women relate to her blog and her husband accepts her for who she is, Shoko distracts herself from self-reflection and the roots of her unmotivated nature that lead back to family relationships, and her desire to become nothing like her dismissive and careless father. When she slowly starts to see her worst nightmare come to life, she leans back on self pity, hate and avoidance.

At the beginning of “Hooked,” it was somewhat infuriating to read about Eriko and Shoko’s inability to create friendships with women, especially since they both have surface-level friendships with men early on. Though, as the story progresses, it’s made clear that men around them have worked to overcomplicate a seemingly very simple idea by conditioning women to believe a friendship between each other cannot exist without tormenting amounts of jealousy and fake niceties. The dialogue shared by men in “Hooked” replicates the elementary school playground talk of “boys being less drama,” and the neverending cliché that every girl in high school is boy obsessed and secretly wants to see her friend fail. Constantly being fed false narratives leads the women to believe that, to some degree, the reason many of their past friendships with women fell apart was due to envy. However, the real culprit was largely Shoko’s inferiority complex and Eriko’s obsessive nature. Both sit in mental cages of their own making by refusing to address their internal conflicts, watching as other women live out their dreams of confiding in each other, belonging and companionship.

By highlighting the beauty of friendship with the harsh contrast of how its absence can lead to depression and an inability to feel sociable, Yuzuki ambitiously takes on the very difficult task of summarizing the complexities of relationships between women. While successful in doing so, the pacing of the book is not for everyone. The slow development allows the reader to relate to intimate details about Shoko and Eriko, but the “nail-biting” description offered by some reviews isn’t entirely accurate. Nonetheless, “Hooked” is an easy read that’s a balance of being unsettling and weirdly true to life. We all just want to feel like someone understands us, and the fear of loneliness, especially as we get older, is deeply tormenting.