Yesteryear
By Caro Claire Burke
Knopf, April 2026, 400pp.
The Short of It:
Innocently lures you in and then drops some very big ideas.
The Rest of It:
Natalie has created a perfect life for herself. She lives in a rustic farmhouse with her ever-growing family and stands up on Christian values, a TRADitional marriage, and prides herself on living simply. Her followers agree. She’s the real deal.
Does it matter that she doesn’t do it all on her own as her social media platforms suggest? Is it really so wrong to have producers and content managers and professional photogs at the ready to capture every splendid, clickable moment on the farm?
Something happens in Natalie’s world to make her question everything. She wakes up one day and doesn’t recognize her own children and her husband has grown…hostile. Spending her days doing laundry that only repeats its dirt cycle over and over again makes her want to lose her mind.
Who are these people? Always trying to guide her and tell her what to do. Who is this man who claims to be her husband? And goodness, she never has a moment to come to her senses because she’s either getting pregnant or having a baby. All those babies along with kids she doesn’t recognize.
Let me tell you how this book make me feel.
Enraged. Actual RAGE.
Besides the actual drama of it all, there is a lot to peel back here and I found myself getting quite worked up.
- The world we live in is often created and curated for clicks. What we see is intentionally misleading and opens the door for comparison where we are often left wanting.
- The conservative push to expand families without support for said families doesn’t make sense. Increasing the population when there are school children without lunch? Makes no sense whatsoever.
- What makes a good marriage? Should give and take not be a part of it? Women are being encouraged to return to TRAD wife lifestyles. Stay at home. Have babies. Take care of your husband. But what do you do when your husband is as useless as Caleb is? Well, Natalie is not only expected to stand by him but she is expected to support him to boost his ego.
- I could not help but question the role of children. Yes, living on a prairie long ago probably warranted a lot of children because work on a farm is never done but are they supposed to do the work of adults? Do they have a voice when they see it all going sideways? No.
I understand that Yesteryear has gotten a lot of attention. Anne Hathaway has already optioned it for a movie that she will star in. And it’s been said, that the book took its inspiration from a well known influencer who is currently battling a raw milk fiasco. All this aside, it definitely makes you feel things. It’s a book that needs to be discussed.
Source: Borrowed
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