[trias]

To me React hooks look like they want to be a different programming language while still using js-syntax. It would be great if "useState", "useMemo" and the like would be first class citizens in a PL.

Hooks as they are have some non-obvious rules which can make them hard to understand / learn. Also debugging is not great (but that's true for react in general, imo)

[wruza]

You should check out Redux if React seems alien in its own language. This entire stack pretends to be something non-imperative javascript, but at the end of the day just offloads all the burden of writing few layers of abstractions by hand on developers.