Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke Review |
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Synopsis
Yesteryear follows Natalie Heller Mills, a traditional Christian wife and mother who has built a huge online following around her picture perfect farm life.
To her followers, Natalie has the perfect home, the perfect husband, the perfect children, and the perfect old-fashioned lifestyle. Behind the camera, though, that life is much more carefully staged than it looks.
After an incident sends Natalie into a strange, darker version of her own reality, she is forced to face the kind of life she has spent years romanticising online.
The story moves between the present and the past, showing how Natalie became the woman she is now, what her life really looks like behind the polished image, and how far the gap is between performance and reality.
Main Character and Key Side Character Summary
Natalie Heller Mills
Sole narrator and POV character
Built her empire around being the perfect traditional Christian housewife
Caleb Mills
Natalie's husband
Has no career drive and shies away from responsibility
Natalie's Mother
Strict and religious with an "always be kind" outlook
A lot of how Natalie sees the world is because of her mother
Natalie's In-Laws
Doug, Caleb's father, is a senator and a powerful force behind the scenes
Conservative and patriarchal with secrets of their own
Review
This really was a bizarre read and I loved it! Yesteryear is easily the most unique book I have read this year. It is strange, very entertaining, darkly funny and completely different from what I usually pick up. I will be honest, this probably would not have been on my radar at all if I had not heard the hype, but I am glad curiosity won this round.
The story follows Natalie, a religious American tradwife influencer who has built her whole life around being seen as perfect. Perfect farm, perfect husband, perfect children, perfect homemade lifestyle. Except, of course, it is not actually perfect. A lot of it is staged, polished, hidden, or just straight-up fake.
Natalie is, to politely put it…intense! She is not the sort of main character you are meant to like. Entertaining yes, but not like? She is judgemental, self-obsessed, cruel in her own head and convinced she is better than most people around her. I do not want to diagnose a fictional woman from my sofa, but narcissistic is definitely the kind of word that floats around while reading her point of view.
Her narration is blunt, sharp and often horrible, but it is also really funny. There were so many moments where I was reading her thoughts and thinking, "wow, you are awful," while still wanting to know what she would say next. That is a tricky balance and I think Caro Claire Burke pulled it off really well.
The book does a brilliant job of showing the gap between Natalie's online image and her real life. She sells this soft, traditional, wholesome lifestyle to her followers, but behind the scenes there are lies, help, shortcuts, resentment and a lot of performance. Nothing about her life is as simple or natural as she wants people to believe.
Once the stage had been set so to speak, that is when things take a bit of a drastic turn. Natalie wakes up in what feels like a twisted, darker version of the life she has spent years perfecting and idealising. It is like the fantasy she sold online has turned around and bitten her.
For most of the story, I was guessing what had actually happened. Was it time travel? A parallel reality? A breakdown? A punishment? A set-up? The book keeps that uncertainty going for a long time and that made it really easy to keep reading. I wanted answers, but I was also enjoying how strange the whole thing was.
The structure worked well too. We move between Natalie's present situation and her past, seeing how her life unfolded and how she became this version of herself. The past chapters give more context to her relationships with her mother, Caleb, her in-laws and her followers. They also show how much of Natalie's life has been built on learning when to smile, when to perform, and when to swallow what she really thinks.
Natalie struggling to keep her internal disdain for anything and everything was my favourite part of this book. She is trying so hard to project this calm, perfect, traditional Christian housewife image, but her inner monologue completely gives her away. She can smile through things when she needs to, but when she is pushed or caught off guard, the mask slips.
The humour is very twisted, but I loved that. This could easily have become too heavy or too ridiculous, but the writing keeps it sharp. It is funny without making Natalie harmless and dark without becoming miserable to read.
I also liked how original it felt. I do not think I have read anything quite like this before. It is part psychological thriller, part satire, part nightmare version of influencer culture and part "be careful what you build your whole personality around."
It was clever, strange, funny, uncomfortable and very hard to stop thinking about.
Who I’d Recommend This Book To
I would recommend this to readers who like:
Psychological thrillers
Unlikeable main characters
Satire around social media, influencer culture, faith, and image
Dark humour
Plot twists
Verdict
I had such a good time with this.
Yesteryear is bizarre, clever, twistedly funny and easily one of the most original books I have read recently. Natalie is awful, but she is awful in a way that made her fascinating to read from. The mix of psychological thriller, satire, social media fakery and strange alternate reality worked so well for me.
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ .5
You can buy this book on Amazon (Affiliate Links):
Hardback: https://amzn.to/4unsm8F
Paperback: https://amzn.to/4vxLmSG
Kindle: https://amzn.to/49K8nJO
Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4xfxPRk
Instagram Caption
Yesteryear by @caroclaireburke - bizarre in the best way 🥲
If you like the following, then this book might be for you:
🧺 Tradwife influencer satire
📱 Social media fakery and perfect online lives
🧠 Psychological thriller weirdness
🖤 Dark humour and an awful main character
🌾 A twisted version of “traditional” living
This was one of the most unique books I have read recently. Natalie is not likeable at all, but her point of view is so sharp, blunt and horrible that I could not stop reading.
It is strange, clever, funny, uncomfortable, and very entertaining.
Rating: 4.5 ⭐️
Full review on my site. Link in bio.
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