Yesteryear

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Before we begin – this was hands down the best book I have read this year.

Yesteryear is the name of the ranch that Natalie lives on, a social media ‘tradwife influencer’ (traditional wife) who upholds and projects her Christian values, showing a glamourous and inspirational life through the manufactured lense of her phone camera. She carefully shapes her image to portray an effortlessly beautiful life of simplicity and purity, broadcasting this to her hundreds of thousands of followers who equally love, envy and critique her. As we learn, not everything you see on social media is true.

One day, Natalie wakes up in the 1850s, into real life, she has been professing as the ideal environment to raise a family. She soon discovers that this lifestyle is not as pure and beautiful as she thought and is in fact incredibly difficult and dangerous; especially for women and children. We navigate this new environment with Natalie, whilst also trying to figure out how she got here, who did this, and why put her through this?

As someone who is actively on social media and fascinated by the ‘tradwife’ movement, this book hooked me as soon as I heard the premise. Regardless, I was surprised at how fascinated I was with these characters and was truly absorbed from the first to the last word. Caro Claire Burke has an incredible way of crafting characters that feel so real, so humorous, but raw and flawed.

This book delves into some tough themes about gender roles, feminism, and the effects of using social media to broadcast a family image have on the children involved. As someone who doesn’t identify as religious, it was also fascinating to read from the perspective of a Christian woman, and how she juggles family pressures, image, gender imbalance within relationships, and faith. 

I highly recommend this book and will be keeping an eye out for all Caro Claire Burke works in the future.

Find Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

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