Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

The current It Book of the Interwebs is Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke.

We're introduced to Natalie, a tradwife influencer who lives with her husband and their children on an immaculate farm in Idaho. We quickly learn that the "flawless Christian mother" image Natalie shows the world is nearly the opposite. She has nannies, farm help, and her perfect marriage is a sham. Natalie knows if The Angry Women who read her blog are just jealous, but if they knew the truth, that jealously would no longer be there. 

But one day Natalie wakes up and it's 1855. She's still married to Caleb, but her children, while familiar, are not her children. Her house has the same bones as the house she's used to, but there's no heating, no running water, and no modern electricity. Is this a hoax (a reality show?)? Is this some sort of paranormal, karmic retribution for Natalie's modern life? How can she get back to where she wants to be?

Spoilers:

Look, the hype machine really let me down here. The premise is so good, but the execution was lacking.

I figured out the "twist" as soon as she kept referring to her husband as Old Caleb and that she wasn't pregnant. I mean, I didn't know how it all went down, but I knew it was actually Future Natalie, not Time Travel Natalie. 

And because of that, I don't think the twist was earned. How did she forget that it was her idea to take all modern elements of the farmhouse, let alone all the effort that had to be done to change it? 

Okay, forget that. Maybe her being drugged is the answer. Let's discuss the bigger picture. 

I wanted this book to be a criticism of this whole tradwife/women shouldn't vote/men should be in charge of the household/societal move towards a version of religiosity that puts women in charge only in a domestic sphere/yay for patriarchy! movement. And maybe that's my fault. Based on the premise, that's what I assumed was going to happen.

Instead what I got was a suggestion that women are mentally ill? 

Natalie is a caricature of a type of woman - she's selfish, mean, and judgmental. I wanted her to be nuanced. I wanted her to be someone I could understand.  I mean, I wouldn't necessarily agree with her, but I wanted to understand. Instead, she was so nasty that I struggled really hard to get through the first third of the book. It's not that she's unlikeable that's the problem - it's that it's not clear why or how she got this way. She's a smart(ish) woman who gets into Harvard and meets a dude from a wealthy family and somehow this is how she turns out? 

And when it turns out that she's an addict (?) or mentally ill (?), it became clear that the author didn't want to actually engage with people who are part of this movement towards making The Handmaid's Tale a reality, but simply to excoriate them. Those people are sick. They belong in jail. 

There's no real acknowledgement that Natalie was a young woman suffering from postpartum depression/anxiety, whose husband was cheating on her, and who experienced domestic violence. There's no acknowledgement that the social anxiety might be a sign of other issues. There's no acknowledgement that Natalie herself was a victim of patriarchy, just more and more pointing out of how mean she was. And since the book is told from Natalie's perspective, maybe that's okay. The people around her wouldn't have acknowledged it. But people comment on how bad she looks - why don't they ever try to get her help?

That's not what I wanted. I don't want to be told women are sick or addicted. I don't want to be told that women are villainous and cruel. I want an examination of the true villain here. Who's the true villain? I don't know. Patriarchy? Technology? Religious institutions? The two party system in the United States? Innate human nature that means appearance is all that matters? I would have liked more than just "woman is drugged" and "woman is bad." I wanted some sort of thematic examination of larger cultural elements at play than handwaving "Natalie ignores politics and what is happening in front of her own eyes." 

It goes right to the end. The woman is punished and who the hell knows what happens to the husband who was equally culpable? Men don't deserve consequences, clearly. 

I did go to a Q&A event with the author on Tuesday and it seems like the author is just not interested in these larger structural conversations, or at least, she was okay letting it go when her editors suggested that long explanatory passages were not necessary in fiction. Burke is mostly interested in power and power hierarchies and how Natalie grapples with her own identity as an ambitious woman in a world that expects women to be beautiful mothers and homemakers who don't think particularly hard. And if you view the book from that lens, it sort of meets the mark. But if you're going to delve into hard topics, I think it does a disservice to do them superficially. 

Excellent premise, but this one was a miss for me. 

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

That’s the thing about being a mother and a wife and an influencer, all at the same time: it’s basically like breastfeeding three babies simultaneously. Like seducing three lovers at once. (location 155)

Gross.

This is a completely obvious notion, when you take a moment to really think about it, but most people don’t take a moment to really think about anything. Most people are morons. (location 223)

See how mean she is?

There comes a point in every marriage when a woman realizes that the man she married is a freak. This is inevitable. It cannot be avoided. (location 2018)

NONONONO. This is not true. 

Hat mentions (why hats?)

cowboy hat(s) (location 322, 3274, 5351)

 tipped his hat (location 336)

throws his hat to the ground (location 663)

she crocheted baby sweaters, socks, and hats (location 711)

 tips off his cowboy hat (location 1349)

 wide-brimmed hat (location 3016, 3027)

grabs his hat to keep it from flying away (location 3243)

sewing little hats (location 3420)

work on these hats (location 3452)

“And you’ve been sewing hats for chickens,” she spits back. (location 3458)

setting his hat onto the hook (location 3476)

custom hats (location 4705)

*******************

For those of you who read this book, do you think I'm off base here? I'm pretty sure lots of you do, based on the rave reviews I've been reading.