64 pages • 2 hours read
Emily McIntireHooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Wendy Michaels
Wendy is the primary protagonist of Hooked, and the novel is focused on how her relationship with James encourages her to transform over the course of the narrative. She is a dynamic character, meaning that she changes and develops over time, and this transformation serves to highlight her femininity and independence. Wendy works at the Vanilla Bean coffee shop, but the job is identified as financially unnecessary, since Wendy’s father, Peter, is wealthy. She has chosen to work as a means of exerting some of her own independence, though she notes early on that “cutting the cord” (8) from Peter is impossible, referencing the umbilical cord that is cut at birth. In addition to her father, Peter, Wendy has a brother, Jonathan, or Jon for short, whom she cares for like her own son. Her father’s negligence toward Jon infuriates Wendy, identifying a protective instinct in her character that extends over the course of the novel to include, at times, her father and James.
The desire for independence and the desire to care for those close to her conflict and contrast at times in the novel, as the men in Wendy’s life tend to try to control her. She frequently mentions that she is “tired” in an abstraction of the pressures placed on her by these men. Wendy is “tired” of being the person responsible for Jon’s well-being, she is “tired” of her father’s negligence and cold dedication to his work, and she is also “tired” of James’s efforts to manipulate and control her. Wendy’s exhaustion is symptomatic of her desire for independence, and she often takes chances in asserting her own will, such as in intimate settings with James and at the end of the novel when she shoots Peter. Such acts reflect Wendy’s strength, and moments of willful disobedience against the men in her life become more frequent as the novel progresses, reflecting the change in Wendy’s character from a timid, obedient daughter and sister into a forceful and independent woman. Though Wendy marries James and the two take Jon in like a son, she has established her individuality and independence before this point, clarifying that her life is her own and marriage and motherhood are her own choice.
James Andrew Barrie (“Hook”)
James is the secondary protagonist of the novel, though he begins the novel as a potential antagonist and villain. Like Wendy, James is a dynamic character, though his transformation is the opposite of Wendy’s. Where Wendy needs to assert herself more, James needs to allow for greater vulnerability, which allows him to shed the villain title in favor of the titles of husband, brother, and father. The novel opens with James killing his uncle, which he notes is the “last moment” he will “ever spend with a relative” (5), implying that all of James’s family is dead. However, James’s relief at killing his uncle is matched with a desire to spend more “moments” with relatives, and his character progression is marked by the absorption of other characters into his “family.” The first member of this “family” is Ru, and James’s connection with Ru dates to his childhood, as Ru is the one who helped James kill his uncle. Together, the two run a criminal enterprise, of which James is both the mastermind and the enforcer, constructing plans and threatening workers and victims alike. Over the course of the novel, Wendy becomes an addition to James’s “family,” as does Jon and Wendy and James’s children, fulfilling James’s transformation from hardened villain to supportive father and husband.
James and Wendy are essentially symbiotic characters, meaning that they rely on each other to enact character progression in the novel. James provides the impetus for Wendy’s change by attempting to dominate her, as well as by providing an instigation for her sexual development. Wendy, in turn, provides a new point of vulnerability for James, which is then exploited by James’s enemies, culminating in his willingness to die for Wendy’s safety. Likewise, Jon provides an opportunity for James to open himself further in accepting daily phone calls from James at Rockford. The daily calls, which James does not tell Wendy about, establish a side of James that contradicts his cold, calculating criminality with a supportive and fatherly tone. Though James is known for his cruelty, his association with Wendy and Jon reveals his desire for closeness and family.
Peter Michaels
Peter is Wendy’s father and James’s rival, and he serves as a foil, or a character that reinforces another character’s traits through opposition, to James in terms of villainy. As a foil, Peter is the cold and calculating villain that James pretends to be, and Peter consistently chooses to neglect and manipulate his family when possible. Peter is a static character, as he does not undergo a change in character over the course of the novel, but he does serve to influence the progression of James’s and Wendy’s characters, and his actions sustain the plot. Peter is the perceived antagonist throughout the novel for both James and Wendy, and this supposed antagonism directly leads to James and Wendy’s relationship. The void left in Wendy’s and Jon’s lives by Peter’s negligence allows James to step in as a more supportive figure, and his attempts to control Wendy and Jon provoke many of Wendy’s acts toward independence.
Peter owns an airline, but he had a similar development in his younger years to that of James, dealing drugs and gaining power in the criminal underground. However, he used his criminal enterprise to start a legitimate business, NevAirLand Airlines, which he uses as a front for continued criminal activity. His wealth is the main asset he uses to control others, and it is presumed throughout most of the novel that Peter is the one recruiting men from James’s Lost Boys. Tina is his assistant, and his relationship with Tina, though largely unexplored in the novel, serves as another breaking-off point for Wendy’s desire for independence. Notably, Peter killed his own wife for having an affair with James’s father, Andrew, and Peter also killed James’s parents for the affair.
Roofus (“Ru”)
Ru, like Peter, is a static character who serves to emphasize the traits of another, though he is not a foil. Arguably, he is the opposite of Croc, James’s uncle, as he provides support to James in his childhood. However, in the novel, Ru has aged and is no longer the dominating criminal force that he was in James’s youth. Though he is not actively passing down control of the enterprise to James, there is an understanding between them that James will take Ru’s place when he eventually retires. Before he gets the chance to retire, though, he is killed by—James assumes—Peter’s men, which serves as an inciting point for James’s anger and desire for revenge.
Ru seems to represent the kind of criminal that James will become, as he is not a villain despite his criminality. He is kind to James, even as a child, and he helps James to overcome Croc’s abuse while taking James on as a kind of apprentice in the criminal world. The moments of sentimentality that Ru expresses, such as when James gives him the lighter, indicate a depth of emotion that counters the more violent nature of the business the two men run.
Jonathan Michaels
Jonathan, or Jon, is Wendy’s brother. It is assumed that he is also Peter’s son, but Peter reveals that Jon is James’s father’s son. The former Andrew Barrie had an affair with Wendy’s mother, which resulted in Jon. Jon’s character is static, as he does not change significantly from the beginning to the end of the novel. The small change that is implied in the end of the novel is that Jon is willing to go to college for a degree in engineering. This decision implies that Jon is not as antisocial at the end of the novel as he was in the beginning, when he preferred homeschooling. However, this change says more about James and Wendy and the home environment that the two provide than it does about Jon himself. Because James and Wendy provide an attentive and loving home life for Jon, he is more comfortable socially than he was with Peter.
As such, Jon is more of an object than a full character, as he serves as an anchoring point for both Wendy’s and James’s desires to build and sustain a family. Jon is the main reason why Wendy moved to Massachusetts at all, and many of her actions are motivated by a desire to protect him from Peter’s negligence. Likewise, Jon reminds James of himself when he was a child, including the desire to go to Rockford Prep, and Jon provides an outlet for James’s brotherly instincts.
Sammy Antonis (“Smee”/“Croc” II)
Smee, whose real name is Sammy Antonis and who goes by Croc, is the son of James’s uncle, Senator Barrie, who also took the name Croc. Initially, Smee’s story is that he was a homeless man in town, and James took him on as an assistant and yacht worker, maintaining the Tiger Lily. However, Smee reveals in the end that he was present for Senator Barrie’s death at James’s hands, and he has been plotting a revenge scheme to kill James ever since. Smee is a caricature of James, as his revenge scheme began when James stood up to his uncle’s abuse, killing him for years of suffering. Though James’s actions seem reasonable, Smee has an idealized image of Senator Barrie in his mind, and he blames James for the fact that he never got a full relationship with his father. This parallels James’s revenge plot, in which James wants to make Peter suffer for killing his parents, though Peter’s excuse for those murders is Andrew Barrie’s affair with Wendy’s mother.
The point that makes Smee’s revenge attempt a caricature is that James is entirely unaware that his uncle had a son or that anyone was present for the murder, and he is ultimately unmoved by Smee’s reveal. Though James is shocked that Smee exists, he is not remorseful, nor does he relate to Smee’s discontent.
Moira and Tina Belle
Moira and Tina are both foils for Wendy, and each of them takes a different path that would also be available to Wendy. Moira is a worker at the Jolly Roger, James’s bar, and she is his primary source of sexual gratification up until Wendy’s appearance in the novel. Moira follows James’s orders, and, for most of the novel, appears to be an entirely obedient worker and lover. Tina, like Moira, works closely with Peter, following his commands and serving as his assistant. It can be assumed that Tina may have a sexual relationship with Peter, though this is not confirmed in the text. Both women are fiercely possessive of their employers/lovers, with Moira and Tina expressing jealousy and disdain for Wendy’s relationships with James and Peter, respectively.
Each of these women, though, makes choices that deviate from Wendy’s in the sense that Moira ultimately leaves James for Smee, and Tina dies defending Peter from Wendy. While Wendy does leave Peter for James in terms of allegiance, she also disobeys James by going to see Peter at the mansion and shooting Peter in the conclusion. As such, Wendy effectively chooses her own path, rather than allegiance to one or more men. Moira simply switches allegiance and dependence from one man to another, while Tina never disobeys her allegiance to Peter. Although Tina injures Wendy, which is against Peter’s orders, she does so because she feels that Wendy is not a good person for Peter’s life, making the assault a defense of Peter, rather than an independent action.
