C
Asako Yuzuki's writing is a joy to read. While Butter is meditative and lush in language, Hooked is fast-paced and plot-driven--not at all a bad thing when it comes to more character-focused narratives. Told from the perspective of 2 women who struggle to make friends with other women, the absence of any sane main character made the whole book arguably darker and more morally challenging than Butter. What arises in Hooked then, is a cruel, dog-eat-dog world where people's vulnerabilities are exploited (just because!), alienation is rife, and time is either squandered or optimised for efficiency in production. Marx would love this novel.
Between Eriko's immediate instability and Shōko's refusal to think, I delighted in the fact that the only two decent characters were men: the manager and Shōko's husband. I love seeing weird, deeply flawed and outright crazy women represented on the page, vis-a-vis upstanding ideals of men. Talk about flipping the script! The novel was pretty Caryl Churchill,Top Girls-esque for how it depicted power and selfishness as patriarchal, non-gendered traits that lead to one's detriment, not essentialised characteristics of men.
Despite me not knowing many women who struggle to make friends with women, or anyone downright lazy, Hooked was a humbling read for how it made its flawed characters off-putting in one instant, and then all-too-familiar in another. Seeing flashes of myself in even the most repugnant characters made me reflect a lot on how I was showing up for others in my own life, be they family, friends, and wider society. Another highly recommended read!
Asako Yuzuki's writing is a joy to read. While Butter is meditative and lush in language, Hooked is fast-paced and plot-driven--not at all a bad thing when it comes to more character-focused narratives. Told from the perspective of 2 women who struggle to make friends with other women, the absence of any sane main character made the whole book arguably darker and more morally challenging than Butter. What arises in Hooked then, is a cruel, dog-eat-dog world where people's vulnerabilities are exploited (just because!), alienation is rife, and time is either squandered or optimised for efficiency in production. Marx would love this novel.
Between Eriko's immediate instability and Shōko's refusal to think, I delighted in the fact that the only two decent characters were men: the manager and Shōko's husband. I love seeing weird, deeply flawed and outright crazy women represented on the page, vis-a-vis upstanding ideals of men. Talk about flipping the script! The novel was pretty Caryl Churchill,Top Girls-esque for how it depicted power and selfishness as patriarchal, non-gendered traits that lead to one's detriment, not essentialised characteristics of men.
Despite me not knowing many women who struggle to make friends with women, or anyone downright lazy, Hooked was a humbling read for how it made its flawed characters off-putting in one instant, and then all-too-familiar in another. Seeing flashes of myself in even the most repugnant characters made me reflect a lot on how I was showing up for others in my own life, be they family, friends, and wider society. Another highly recommended read!