Hooked

by Asako Yuzuki

translated by Polly Barton

Purchase on : Amazon | Bookshop.org

A taut, unsettling novel about obsession, loneliness, and the dangerous space between wanting a friend and needing one.

ARC Review

Publisher: Ecco | Out: March 17, 2026

What It's About

Eriko has a perfect life on paper. Prestigious job, spotless apartment, devoted parents. What she doesn't have is a real friend. When she discovers Shoko, a lifestyle blogger whose warm and chaotic life is everything Eriko's isn't, she engineers a meeting and tells herself it's fate. What follows is an unlikely friendship that slowly, quietly tilts into something much darker. Both women are heading toward a breaking point. Neither sees it coming.

What Stuck With Me

If you loved Butter, you will feel immediately at home here. Yuzuki has a gift for writing women who are deeply uncomfortable to be around and completely impossible to look away from. Eriko is meticulous, lonely, and frightening in the most ordinary way. Shoko is warm and messy and more complicated than she first appears. Watching their lives begin to pull at each other left me genuinely uncomfortable.

What I kept thinking about was how hard it is to make real friends as an adult. That longing Eriko carries is not dramatic or theatrical. It is painfully ordinary. And underneath that is something Yuzuki handles with real honesty, the way women can sometimes be their own worst enemies, and each other's too.

The two women's contrasting lives do a lot of heavy lifting here. Eriko's control and Shoko's chaos are not just character details. They are the engine of the whole book. As the story moves forward you start to see how much each woman is hiding behind the version of herself she presents to the world, and that is where things get really interesting.

Polly Barton's translation is excellent. The tension never drops and the voice stays sharp throughout.

Would I Recommend It

Absolutely. If you read and loved Butter this is an easy next read. If you are new to Yuzuki this is also a fine place to start. It is the kind of book that makes you think about your own friendships and what you bring to them, which is exactly what good fiction should do.

My Takeaway

Sometimes the most dangerous thing you can offer someone is exactly what they've always wanted.

Thank you to Ecco and NetGalley for the advanced copies in exchange for an honest review.

If you like this book, you may also like:

Butter by Asako Yuzuki

To the Moon by Jang Ryujin

Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami