By Asako Yuzuki, translated by Polly BartonFiction/Ecco/Paperback/395 pages/$34.88

Asako Yuzuki’s English-language debut, Butter (2024), was a runaway hit, a compulsively readable tale of gourmet murder and female rage. In search of a scoop, a journalist reaches out to a convicted serial-killer chef and becomes increasingly entwined with the femme fatale, whose insolent pleasure-seeking prompts a reappraisal of misogynistic Japanese beauty standards. 

Hooked is the shrewd follow-up. This earlier work, written in 2015, was picked from Yuzuki’s catalogue of more than 20 Japanese novels, no doubt for the same strands of social critique and engrossing relationship that made Butter an international sensation.

Its crimson cover with yellow lettering – an inversion of Butter’s lurid yellow, blood-streaked jacket that for months was inescapable on public transport – promises the same high-wire plot and seething discontent, a pitch it fully delivers. This time, Yuzuki turns her cleaver on female friendships. 

Hooked again centres two women living in Tokyo. Eriko is the uptight professional working in a big trading firm who becomes obsessed with slacker housewife Shoko. 

Alone during early mornings at the office, a sacred time for Eriko, who sorely lacks a life outside work, she reads Shoko’s blog, The Diary Of Hallie B, The World’s Worst Housewife. 

Drawn to Hallie B’s unambitious rawness, the opposite of her own “deadly serious” attitude to life, Eriko engineers an “accidental” meeting with Shoko in a cafe. At first, the two hit it off in a dreamy anime-like way, but Shoko is soon scared off when Eriko comes on too much, too fast. When Shoko starts distancing herself, Eriko doubles down and becomes a stalker fan. 

It is to Yuzuki’s credit that Eriko’s slide into sociopathy feels almost relatable, a horrific sequence of social cues misread and a desperate longing for companionship pushing a grown, 30-year-old woman one step too far each time. How thin the skin of one’s sanity, t...