React Hook recipe from https://usehooks.com. Demo: https://codesandbox.io/s/01w2zmj010

use-hover-example.js

import { useRef, useState, useEffect } from 'react';

// Usage
function App() {
  const [hoverRef, isHovered] = useHover();

  return (
    <div ref={hoverRef}>
      {isHovered ? '😁' : '☹️'}
    </div>
  );
}

// Hook
function useHover() {
  const [value, setValue] = useState(false);

  const ref = useRef(null);

  const handleMouseOver = () => setValue(true);
  const handleMouseOut = () => setValue(false);

  useEffect(
    () => {
      const node = ref.current;
      if (node) {
        node.addEventListener('mouseover', handleMouseOver);
        node.addEventListener('mouseout', handleMouseOut);

        return () => {
          node.removeEventListener('mouseover', handleMouseOver);
          node.removeEventListener('mouseout', handleMouseOut);
        };
      }
    },
    [ref.current] // Recall only if ref changes
  );

  return [ref, value];
}

React Hook React.useEffect has an unnecessary dependency: 'ref.current'. Either exclude it or remove the dependency array. Mutable values like 'ref.current' aren't valid dependencies because mutating them doesn't re-render the component. eslint (react-hooks/exhaustive-deps)

    [ref.current] // Recall only if ref changes

could be changed to

    [ref] // Recall only if ref changes

?

@forresto this change won't fix that issue. Try @jjenzz's solution

I had an issue with the last event being fired being a mouseover event. I switched the mouseover to mouseenter and mouseout to mouseleave which solved it. Any drawbacks to this method? It also limits the amount of events firing as it doesn't fire on child elements.

I don't really think you need the useRef hook.
you could just use the useState hook and the onMouseEnter and onMouseLeave as props on the component.

what do you think?

import React,{useState,useRef,useEffect} from "react"

export default function Image({className,image}){
    const [ishover, setIsHover] = useState(false)
    console.log(ishover)  
    
    return(
        <div 
            className={`${className} image-container`}
            onMouseEnter={() => setIsHover(true)}
            onMouseLeave={() => setIsHover(false)}
        >
            <img src={image.url} className="image-grid"/>    
        </div>
    )
}