05/31/2026
“Yesteryear” by Caro Claire Burke is thankfully restocked in local bookstores. The novel offers remodel drama and luxury property deals, thank goodness, but there’s more to it than good ole’ real estate.
The plot gets readers in the door: influencer “trad wife” wakes up in 1855 Idaho. Tell. Me. More. Anyone with Netflix knows real frontier life sucked: Childbirth. Privy pits. Monthly baths. Rotten teeth. Hys-teria. Cholera. Gangrene. Lye. Enslavement. Snakes. Rats. Lice. Marital r**e. Wolves. Monthlies. Squirrel brain soup. Burlap underwear. Cold. Cold. Cold. Slather that on a sanctimonious female with hot-curled tresses and Botox face…and voila: bestseller
…but a tricky one.
Despite its yummy premise, my algorithms report “Yesteryear” is “polarizing.” Let’s blame the narrator, Natalie Heller Mills, who is a narcissistic liar. Natalie boasts she is “a flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of this nation’s deepest, darkest fantasies.” Poor flawless Natalie must herd idiots (including her husband, mother, sister and five children) into compliance. Yestery-ear’s 1.5 million+ rubes require authentic giggles and kisses to keep clicking.
Pigeonholing Natalie misses the mark though. Recipient of a full-ride to Harvard, Nattie is no fool. It is sad that such a magnificent mind was “born into a world where…the job of a woman was threefold. Be a mother, be a wife, and keep the household clean.” Bored and armed with a turkey baster, she curates her Yesteryear world to carve profit from the American patriarchy. She fails, of course, and snaps. Natalie is the madwoman in the attic of the social media age,
I think “Yesteryear” has shot to number one on “The New York Times” bestseller list because America is waking up. We see children lost to screen addiction. We mourn hours lost to scrolling. We flinch at the resurgent white-washing of American history. “Yesteryear’s” cast of liars, racist billionaires, impotent mano-spherians, and bold Gen Z whistleblowers feel too familiar. “Yesteryear” unearths problems we want healed. And so we read on. And so we discuss.
Let's talk real estate, or books, or both. Happy reading!
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