Hooked is Asako Yuzuki’s second novel to be published in English, her first being Butter (Asia by the Book, September 2025). It was originally published in the Japanese language as ナイルパーチの女子会 （Nile Perch no Joshikai) in 2015 by Bungei Shunju. The book was translated by Polly Barton who also translated Butter. The book was nominated for the Naoki Prize for the first of 2015 but lost out to Akira Higashiyama’s Ryu (Asia by the Book, March 2026).

Hooked is a psychological thriller about obsession, betrayal, prestige, and female friendships. Eriko Shimamura is a young, single woman in her thirties who works in the food sales division at Nakamura, Japan’s largest trading company. Her section is in charge of importing food products from overseas, and selling them to domestic companies.

Eriko always had a competitive streak in her and liked being ahead of other people. Her father, who worked at this same company, instilled in her that “getting in their first was a crucial skill in a successful businessperson”. Although she lived with her parents in Setagaya Ward in Tokyo, they “weren’t delighted by the fact that their only daughter ate breakfast apart from them”. Eriko had been working for Nakamura for the past eight years so her parents didn’t complain about it anymore.

Eriko seems to have everything going for. She has good looks, she has a great job, she earns a salary of more than ten million yen but refuses to leave home. She can say with confidence “that the most valuable resource in the world was time. You could make a go of most things, if you only had time”.

However, there is one thing missing from Eriko’s picture-perfect life. She doesn’t have any friends. She’s never had a steady boyfriend and it seems none of the other women in the office want to hang out with her.

Eriko’s idea of excitement is to read a blog. She had been following the blog for two years. Her morning breakfast was something the blogger had recommended - a Karinto Melon Bun.

Karinto is a traditional Japanese snack which is primarily made of four, yeast, and brown sugar. It’s sweet and deep–fried while the melon bun or melanpan is a popular sweet bun made from a soft bread dough and covered in a layer of crisp cookie or biscuit dough.

The blogger had written, “The idea of combining karinto and the trusty melon bun is, of course, totally stupid”. However, the blogger continues by saying, “when you bite into that greasy, crunchy coating with its hint of soy sauce not unlike mitarashi dumplings, it’s like emerging from a tunnel into the light, with the bright fresh green flavor of melon fanning out all around you”.

The blogger says she’s now addicted to the item. “A stupid taste. A stupid price”. But then she writes, “...getting by on ‘stupid food’ actually makes things very easy. It’s kind of soothing to feel like you’ve found a way to cheat at life”.

It’s that last phrase that really caught Eriko’s attention. For Eriko, “life so far had been something to take deadly seriously, to grapple with as earnestly as one could”. For the last two years, Eriko’s sense of enjoyment was to read a blog called Diary of Hallie B, The World’s Worst Wife.

One of her coworkers looked at the blog Eriko had been reading. The writer of the blog is a woman named Shoko. Her blog was on the list of the 30 Most Popular Homemaker Blogs.

Her male co-worker was a little shocked and asked Eriko, “What does a single girl like you get out reading something like this?”.

According to the blog, Hallie B. is married and lives with her husband who is a local supermarket manager. Eriko was telling her co-worker, Hallie-B isn’t like other wife bloggers - “She doesn’t go on about being a wife all the time.

As Eriko continues to read Hallie-B’s blog, she makes a new discovery. Hallie-B lives close by and like an amateur detective, Eriko begins to seek out the real Hallie-B. Their first meeting is what Eriko had been dreaming of for a long time. A female-friend to hang out with and talk to. To share lots of things. However, when Hallie-B doesn’t show the same enthusiasm, this leads Eriko to go to even more trouble to make Hallie-B understand her.

Hooked really is a disturbing novel about how one woman will go to any lengths to change other people’s way of thinking to her own. Her obsession with Hallie-B goes out of control and begins to affect her work and personal life. We learn that Eriko experienced a similar incident in high school that she does with Hallie-B.

I don’t see anything wrong with striving to be your best at what you do whether it be at work or in your personal life, but when you start infringing on another person’s life by trying to get them to change, then I think you need to take a good look at your own life and get your priorities straight.