If you have heard one book discussed online without being part of the book community, it is Yesteryear. Whereas, if you are part of the book community, you have seen this trad-wife horror book talked about everywhere. If I have caught you at a stage where you are still debating if you should pick Yesteryear for your next read, welcome to The Calcuttan Bibliophile — I review, recommend and bring hype to underrated books here.

So I picked up Yesteryear like many of the readers have, through the incessant posts about how great it was. I usually go into books completely blind, but this time, I had a faint idea about what I was getting into. A trad-wife infuencer, cheekily named Natalie, gets a taste of her own preaching when she is transported to the pioneer days of 1855 is the premise of the novel. And it is largely true.

Natalie is a social climber. She has been raised with values that encounter shocks when she gets into college and witnesses how the rest of the world lives. She is arguing with professors about gender-specific biology, she is judging her peers and she is a complete outcast for clinging on to her ultra-conservative value system. How does she climb the social ladder in this situation? She finds a man with similar belief system.

Caleb Mills is the son of a conservative wannabe politician. He comes from money, daddy is actually a rich businessman. Caleb is the youngest of the lot and quite the black sheep of the family. When they meet, the romance is quick and the wedding even swifter. Natalie drops out of the course to go raise children as she believes is her duty.

Natalie has a problem. In choosing Caleb as her husband, this ambitious young woman is now dependent on a good-for-nothing lazy man. Natalie is made aware that her in-laws had hoped that she will raise their son to have some sense of responsibility and the fact that Caleb is still lounging around the house is a blame they will rest on her doorstep.

Desperate to have the success she has dreamed of and has now attached herself to with the Mills name, she goes to her father-in-law and asks for money. Shrewed Doug Mills agrees to Natalie’s demands in exchange for more grandchildren. Natalie is tied down to the family. She builds a business empire at the Yesteryear ranch by selling a lifestyle she does not actually live but all of it is in her husband’s name.

While she narrates the entire book with scathing hatred towards women who work, women who prioritise their careers over their family and women who wish to be on equal footing to men, she herself ends up doing much more than her husband but owning nothing of the fruits of her own work. This feels like true representation of women’s work before we had rights and the voice to raise for those rights.

Caleb has an affair with Natalie’s manager. When Natalie lashes out at her (yes, at her), she uses the incident and all the footage she has shot for Natalie to expose her on live television. Her husband’s family abandon her in minutes. Worse, she becomes a thorn in her father-in-law’s political campaign and is threatened with potentially being murdered.

Up until this incident, things track. The readers are having fun with the karmic justice and full-circle moments that Natalie is facing. But the narrative is being told from two timelines. Natalie is stuck in 1855 in one of those timelines and it is confusing to say the least.

She is living in her home but the house straight out of the old days, her husband looks like her husband but not, her children are people she has never met before but she can recognise herself in them. Now, if this were a true time-travel story, isekai, I would have liked it better. If this even had Natalie going mad and ending up in an asylum, I would have liked it better.

SPOILER ALERT! You don’t need to know more if you would not like to know more!

But this book was neither. It is Caleb and the Mills family who have constructed this alternate reality for her to exist in. Natalie wanted to live by the values of the old world, did not want to shun the modern world with all its perks. Her business empire was based on her being an influencer, she was dependent on the technology.

The horror comes alive in the fact that men, Caleb and his father, have taken her choices away from her, isolated and abused her. The sad by-products of the whole situation are the younger children who have been brainwashed to live in that alternate reality with the couple. Natalie’s numerous escape attempts are heartbreaking and anxiety-inducing to read about.

The book fails in seamlessly connecting the two timelines of the past and the present. Considering that the reality of the present is the pivotal twist of the book, it just did not land. The concept is not new, but the hype is real because of the current socio-political scenario across borders and the rise of trad-wife influencers.

But did we need a poorly-executed book about how men are the ultimate winners in a setting where women turn against other women? Nope.

I would still give this book a 4-star rating for the sheer potential the first 60% of the plot had set up and the trendsetter this is about to be. I can only hope that the books to follow in the same theme do a better job at their endings.

You can grab your copy of Yesteryear by Claro Claire Burke here.

(I earn a small commission from every qualified purchase from the link to continue reading and reviewing)

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Have you read Yesteryear by Claro Claire Burke? What are your thoughts on it? What are your favourite trad-wife influencer satire books?

Feel free to drop a comment or reach out to me across social media at @thecalcuttanbibliophile. I would love to hear from you.