Abstract: I will discuss results from my recent attempts to apply flavor symmetries to two-body hadronic $B$ decays. Given the non-perturbative nature of QCD, I explore hadronic $B$ decays in light of flavor symmetries such as isospin and SU(3). Focusing on two-body charmless decays, I will show that recent data have helped uncover a significant violation of SU(3) symmetry. Along the way, I will show how symmetry relations in the $b$-quark decay Hamiltonian play a crucial role in the application of flavor symmetries. I will also present an outlook and prospects for future applications to other similar systems.