Lauren
On the surface, Yesteryear is a debut novel about Natalie, a woman who partakes in the tradwife persona online while having a team behind the curtains making her social media boom possible, and what it may be like to truly live during the time she tries to encapsulate online. This story is also about womanhood, media perception, real vs fake identity, religious trauma, and more. I can’t say this was a fun time, but I can say I will be thinking about this for a long while. While it was not perfect (the pacing in the middle was pretty slow for how fast it wrapped up), I’m very impressed that this is a debut novel and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for anything else Burke decides to write (and perhaps I’ll need to check out her podcast). This story features a full cast of unlikable characters (literally no one) and the perspective of one of the most unreliable characters I’ve read in a long time. Truly, I’m still thinking through some of the things I’ve read and I’m trying to decide what occurred (this was an intention choice and it does make me want to reread it. Personally, I love an unreliable narrator, but I can see some people not enjoying this book because of that. I also appreciated that the writing style was both readable and very intentional. There were very few things I did not like about this book. The pacing was a bit of a hurdle for me. This book is not any longer than what I typically read, but it took me significantly longer to get through it due to the off pacing. While I love characterization, I felt we were given a few too many scenes to help the reader understand how a character (partially Natalie) behaves or thinks. I wish some of it was pared down because it resulted in a lot of nothing happening for a while. I also wanted more time in the past timeline. While we needed the present timeline, we spent too much time there for me.
Before I get into my more spoilery thoughts, I think think book requires a few specific trigger warnings: (I’m sure I missed some) Misogyny (external and internalized) Slut shaming Sexual assault Physical assault Depression childbirth Child loss Miscarriage Abuse (physical, emotional, child) Neglect Religious bigotry Homophobia Animal death infidelity
Spoiler Section Below . . . . . . . . . . Honestly, I felt kind of dumb I didnt figure out what was happening. The clues were all there, but I somehow missed it. I really like how Burke left the language in the “1800s” modern. While reading it I found it a little jolting, but now knowing that they were not in the past, it felt like a well developed clue. I also thought it was so interesting that everyone around Natalie said she was awful and and mean (and she was internally), but then towards the end she says her mean thoughts out loud, but it’s still in italics and not quotes, so I’m curious how much of that stuff was said out loud. Her old roommate and her mom called her out for being mean, so I’m guessing at least some of it?? I do wish we know what happened with Caleb, her husband. In this way, the ending fell a little flat. I don’t need things to be tied up with a bow, but I do find him to be even worse than her. I don’t think Natalie was ever a good person, but she certainly was suffering from postpartum depression and never received the proper support or treatment and was very unwell. Meanwhile her husband is happy to do nothing, drug her, was consciously and willfully neglecting their children, and did not provide his wife proper medical treatment when her foot became mangled. I’m not giving Natalie a pass, but the story does nothing to either tell us he was held accountable for his part in the abuse, nor does it give any kind of messaging about how men are rarely held accountable for the same crimes as women (the story touches on the latter once, but not in regards to what happens with Caleb). I also don’t know what to think of the story line with Shannon. In one breath she says Caleb is smarter than he seems and in the next she says she would be too smart to have his kids, so which is it? I also don’t know what to think about the sexual assault claims because it didn’t seem that way from the book, but Natalie is not exactly reliable. Still, I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of Natalie acting out this way in some kind of suppressed desire (it’s kind of a harmful concept and I don’t think that’s was this author’s intentions considering how the rest of the book was written), so I’m choosing to believe Shannon is also unreliable as well.
On the surface, Yesteryear is a debut novel about Natalie, a woman who partakes in the tradwife persona online while having a team behind the curtains making her social media boom possible, and what it may be like to truly live during the time she tries to encapsulate online. This story is also about womanhood, media perception, real vs fake identity, religious trauma, and more. I can’t say this was a fun time, but I can say I will be thinking about this for a long while. While it was not perfect (the pacing in the middle was pretty slow for how fast it wrapped up), I’m very impressed that this is a debut novel and I will certainly be keeping an eye out for anything else Burke decides to write (and perhaps I’ll need to check out her podcast). This story features a full cast of unlikable characters (literally no one) and the perspective of one of the most unreliable characters I’ve read in a long time. Truly, I’m still thinking through some of the things I’ve read and I’m trying to decide what occurred (this was an intention choice and it does make me want to reread it. Personally, I love an unreliable narrator, but I can see some people not enjoying this book because of that. I also appreciated that the writing style was both readable and very intentional. There were very few things I did not like about this book. The pacing was a bit of a hurdle for me. This book is not any longer than what I typically read, but it took me significantly longer to get through it due to the off pacing. While I love characterization, I felt we were given a few too many scenes to help the reader understand how a character (partially Natalie) behaves or thinks. I wish some of it was pared down because it resulted in a lot of nothing happening for a while. I also wanted more time in the past timeline. While we needed the present timeline, we spent too much time there for me.
Before I get into my more spoilery thoughts, I think think book requires a few specific trigger warnings: (I’m sure I missed some) Misogyny (external and internalized) Slut shaming Sexual assault Physical assault Depression childbirth Child loss Miscarriage Abuse (physical, emotional, child) Neglect Religious bigotry Homophobia Animal death infidelity
Spoiler Section Below . . . . . . . . . . Honestly, I felt kind of dumb I didnt figure out what was happening. The clues were all there, but I somehow missed it. I really like how Burke left the language in the “1800s” modern. While reading it I found it a little jolting, but now knowing that they were not in the past, it felt like a well developed clue. I also thought it was so interesting that everyone around Natalie said she was awful and and mean (and she was internally), but then towards the end she says her mean thoughts out loud, but it’s still in italics and not quotes, so I’m curious how much of that stuff was said out loud. Her old roommate and her mom called her out for being mean, so I’m guessing at least some of it?? I do wish we know what happened with Caleb, her husband. In this way, the ending fell a little flat. I don’t need things to be tied up with a bow, but I do find him to be even worse than her. I don’t think Natalie was ever a good person, but she certainly was suffering from postpartum depression and never received the proper support or treatment and was very unwell. Meanwhile her husband is happy to do nothing, drug her, was consciously and willfully neglecting their children, and did not provide his wife proper medical treatment when her foot became mangled. I’m not giving Natalie a pass, but the story does nothing to either tell us he was held accountable for his part in the abuse, nor does it give any kind of messaging about how men are rarely held accountable for the same crimes as women (the story touches on the latter once, but not in regards to what happens with Caleb). I also don’t know what to think of the story line with Shannon. In one breath she says Caleb is smarter than he seems and in the next she says she would be too smart to have his kids, so which is it? I also don’t know what to think about the sexual assault claims because it didn’t seem that way from the book, but Natalie is not exactly reliable. Still, I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of Natalie acting out this way in some kind of suppressed desire (it’s kind of a harmful concept and I don’t think that’s was this author’s intentions considering how the rest of the book was written), so I’m choosing to believe Shannon is also unreliable as well.