Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Yesteryear,' by Caro Claire Burke

“Yesteryear,” Caro Claire Burke’s debut novel, tells the story of Natalie Heller Mills: an ultrasuccessful tradwife influencer who posts about her life on Yesteryear Ranch, a homestead where she grows her own food, tends to cows and chickens, raises her six children and models a particular brand of conservative Christian womanhood. But not all is as it seems. Behind the cameras, nannies care for the children, Natalie shops for the types of groceries she decries online, she detests her husband with his manosphere beliefs, and she’s on the cusp of being exposed by a rogue video producer.

One day she wakes up and discovers she has been transported to 1855, forced to live the pioneer persona she has been performing online. How did she get there? How can she escape? And what does her misery mean about the lifestyle she has embraced for profit?

"Yesteryear" was met with fanfare after it was published in April. Even before the book was released, it was scooped up for a film adaptation that Anne Hathaway is set to star in and produce. The novel was selected as a “Good Morning America” Book Club pick; Burke appeared on “Late Night With Seth Meyers”; and the book has spent more than a month on The Times’s best-seller list.

Everyone, it seems, is talking about “Yesteryear.” But does it live up to the hype? On this episode of the Book Review Book Club, the host MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Jennifer Harlan and Joumana Khatib.

Other books mentioned in this episode:

• “Running Out of Time,” by Margaret Peterson Haddix

• “Gone Girl,” by Gillian Flynn

• “The Power,” by Naomi Alderman

• “Eileen,” by Ottessa Moshfegh

• “The Compound,” by Aisling Rawle

• “Hot Girls With Balls,” by Benedict Nguyen

• “Just Watch Me,” by Lior Torenberg

• “A Good Person,” by Kirsten King

• “The Guest,” by Emma Cline

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