This book has taken the world by storm. Because of all the hype I honestly had no initial desire to read this book. Often times hyped books tend to be over hyped and I end up being disappointed in my read. So what made me decide to pick it up? Honestly, a few things; I had an audible credit that needed to be used so I could cancel my subscription, all of my friends were reading it and lastly, I knew this would be in the GoodReads choice awards at the end of the year and more than likely win it’s category so I guess you could chalk it down to FOMO. Luckily I was not disappointed in this read, ultimately I was pleasantly surprised.
“The way some women so willingly compromised every ounce of themselves in the name of building a life for themselves that they didn’t enjoy.”
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
About The Book
Author: Caro Clair Burke
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Published Date: April 7th, 2026
Page Count: 400 Pages
Main Genre: Literary Fiction
GoodReads Rating: 3.90
Format: Audio Book
“The goal of an influencer is not to be lovable, and it is not to be unbearable. The goal is to be both at once. In other words: addicting.”
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
Synopsis
My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.
Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.
A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.
Rating
“America didn’t care one iota about morality when it came to politicians. If anything, we expected them to be a little sleazy.”
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
Review
As someone who lives in Utah I am surrounded by Mormon/Christian Influencers. Two big names came to the front of my mind while I was reading this book, they are Ballerina Farm and Ruby Franke. Both of whom were very prevalent in the Mormon church.
Ballerina Farm came to my mind mostly because she had opened up her own farmstead store last year in Utah. Her family lives the farm life and she makes content very similar to Natalie in Yesteryear.
Ruby Franke comes to mind because of her awful use of her children in her content. The idea of showing off her perfect family online but the reality of their lives were horrific.
This whole book had a vast array of themes but the one that really stuck out to me was the content creation and how it changes a person. I have always had issues with family bloggers as we never know what truly goes on behind the camera. How present are these parents in their kids lives when the cameras get turned off? Natalie never really wanted to be a mother yet she kept having children and promoted having a big happy family. In front of the camera she seemed like a lovely, kind and caring mother but when the cameras were off she admitted to hardly even recognizing her children’s faces.
Let’s discuss how Natalie was an unlikable character. I have DNF’d 8 Books this year, majority of them were because the FMC was annoying and very unlikable but in my opinion they didn’t need to be portrayed that way for the book to actually be good. With Natalie, being unlikable is what made this book interesting. I would have not cared for this book if she was preppy and “normal”.
So much of this story made me uncomfortable but that’s exactly why I was gripped. I was baffled by a lot of the things Natalie was saying or doing. the turkey baster?! Heck no man… Because of the wild choices she makes you could easily see the decline of her sanity. It gave you something distinguishable to mark as another loss to her morality.
I am not entirely sure what I expected the ending to be but what I read was not it. I am writing this review 24 hours after finishing the book and I still feel like I am trying to gather all my thoughts and feelings on this book. I am not shocked by the ending, in fact, looking back there were plenty of signs as to where this story was headed but I guess I was so lost in the facade myself that I lost my way as well.
In my head I pictured this family as Mormon, mostly because I am from Utah and was raised Mormon and have since left the church. It was just the easiest form of Christianity for me to visualize. With that said though, there were things that inherently weren’t Mormon about these characters and that was a bit distracting to me. I know the author didn’t specifically say which denomination of Christianity she was writing about but I wish that she would have made that distinction as it could have made her book just that more compelling.
I have so many other thoughts to share but I really wanted to focus my thoughts for this review. I would really love to discuss this book with other people so please comment down below what you thought of this book and if you agree or disagree with anything I said above.
“A voice in my head, echoing softly: America hates angry women. The Lord hates angry women. You hate angry women. Do not be an angry woman.”
Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
QOTD: Have you picked up a popular book recently that actually met the expectations of the hype around it?
World of Bai 