The Verdict
Today’s book is Yesteryear, the debut novel by Caro Claire Burke. It’s been on the New York Times bestseller list since April, and Anne Hathaway is set to star in the movie.
My verdict: read it, if you can handle a truly awful narrator. It’s sharp, darkly funny satire with a twist that recasts the whole book. But the middle drags, and the tone swings hard. I give it four out of five, and no spoilers here.
The Influencer
Natalie Heller Mills is a tradwife influencer. She has five children, a sixth on the way, a ranch in Idaho, and five million followers who watch her bake sourdough and talk to her chickens.
Her brand is called Yesteryear: the simple, old fashioned life. Behind the camera, there are nannies, a producer, ranch hands, store bought beef, and a hidden microwave.
The Husband
Her husband, Caleb, is the youngest son of a powerful senator. On camera he’s a cowboy. Off camera he’s soft, aimless, and spending a lot of time on strange online forums.
The money comes from his father, and so does the pressure: a big, perfect American family.
The Hook
Then one morning, Natalie wakes up in the same farmhouse, but everything is different. There’s no electricity. Four children she’s never seen call her Mama. And a cold, hard version of her husband tells her she’s home.
A notch on the doorframe reads eighteen fifty five. Has she traveled in time? Is it a reality show? Or something else?
Two Timelines
The book switches between that strange present, and flashbacks of how Natalie built her brand, from a seventeen year old leaving Idaho for Harvard to the day everything started to fall apart.
The two timelines race toward each other, and when they meet, the twist lands.
What Works
First, the voice. Natalie is appalling, and very funny. She swears, then adds, sorry, Lord. She practices her smile in the mirror. You’ll hate her and keep reading.
Second, the satire. The book knows the influencer business inside out: the courses, the merch, the hate watchers, the kids who never asked to be filmed.
Third, the twist. On a second read, the clues are everywhere.
What Doesn’t Work
Now the honest part. First, the middle sags. The present day chapters repeat the same chores and the same bad bread for a long stretch.
Second, the tone. It swings from comedy to real abuse, and some scenes are hard to laugh through.
Third, the twist is guessable if you catch one early clue, and some of its mechanics are thin.
Content Notes
A heads up: there’s domestic violence, coerced sex, child neglect and abuse, postpartum depression, suicidal thoughts, and a lot of explicit content and slurs.
The Scorecard
My scores. Voice, five out of five. Satire, four and a half. Twist, four. Pacing, three. Characters, three and a half. That averages to four.
Who It’s For
Read it if you loved Gone Girl or The Stepford Wives, or if you’ve ever hate watched a homestead account at midnight.
Skip it if you need a likable narrator, or if child abuse in fiction is a hard line for you.
Where To Go Next
I’ve also made an ending explained, a video on the real tradwife trend behind the book, and a list of books like it. They’re linked below. Tell me in the comments: did you guess the twist?
