Yes, I agree with your point. It can be intimidating at the start, happens with almost every new paradigm shift. I also sailed on the same ship in the start, but once I start getting hold of it, I could see the benefits which would never have been possible with the class-based approach. I think every new paradigm shift needs at least a try. It may look a lot in this article(because its descriptive), but its quite a small API surface for learning React hooks.

you may try to add following plugin to help you learn react hooks better. It helped me atleast:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@simbathesailor/use-what-changed