Haley’s June Audiobook: Yesteryear

The first time I heard of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke was through social media oddly enough. I saw that Anne Hathaway was producing and staring in a future film adaptation of the book before it was even out yet. And I personally believe, everything Anne Hathaway touches must be gold! This assumption was not wrong.

Yesteryear is about a woman named Natalie that grows up in a strict evangelical Christian environment. She holds these values and prejudices from the environment of her upbringing as an adult which leads her into an uncomfortable young marriage and life as a “tradwife” influencer. She is thrown back into 1855 to swallow the harsh pill of a false reality she’s been pedaling online. The writing of this book is fantastic. Burke give us a front row seat to the inner workings of Natalie and why she is making the choices she makes. While this makes the book exciting to read, it also had me incredibly frustrated with Natalie for the entire story. She is not a likable person, at all. She is someone that never takes accountability, she’s driven by her jealousy of others and need for attention, and she lies constantly. It contrasts heavily with the online image she creates for herself and sells to the world.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is “Do you think there is not consequence to performance?” Often people think or talk about there not being harm to creating a picturesque escape for people to look at online. Or, my least favorite, that art doesn’t have an impact on society. While in reality art is extremely impactful on society! Influencers are used as propaganda, to build trust with an audience to sell potentially harmful goods, and to create echo chambers to form a new norm for zombie scrollers where no one disagrees but those who do are cancelled/shunned/shadow banned. The exploration of this quote is so important for our current climate and will continue to be important.

The concept of this book and the characters Caro Claire Burke created ring true to the contemporary audience and will land this book high in ranks for the year and potentially make it into an American canon. There I said it! If you are not too burnt out by gloom of the news, I recommend this book. However, if you are too burnt out on the gloom of the news, check out my book of the month, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac by Sharma Shields for an uncanny escape.