Yesteryear: A Novel

A traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers, suddenly awakens cold, filthy, and terrified in the brutal reality of 1805—where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her …

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie’s followers—all 8 million of them—don’t know won’t hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They’re sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn’t simply living the good life, she’s living the ideal—and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn’t hers. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she’s expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

1 Auflage

Hardcover

Erschienen am 7. April 2023

ISBN:: 978-0-593-80421-6
ISBN kopiert!

Rezensionen

nein hat Yesteryear: A Novel von Caro Claire Burke besprochen

Caro, this was so weird...

4,0 stars

So, there's quite a hype around this book. There's a problem once a book becomes such an internet phenomenon: a lot of people read this book that would have never been interested in it under normal circumstances. Which in turn leads to an abundance of contradictory opinions.

So for me, apart from it being weird, and I mean good weird, it was a sad and reflective book. One is confronted with an unlikable and unreliable narrator which is something I love. There is always a bias towards these kinds of narrators but they can be found in many classics and in my opinion some of the best stories are told this way. It's funny to me how some people criticize the book because of the narrator. What do you mean you didn't like the trade wife influencer, who exploits her children, is a white nationalist, and a far right …

Anyway, it made me reflect on my own role as a mother, on gender as a performance, on surveillance, and the systematic misogyny that is such a part of our culture that it becomes ingrained in every individual person.

Amber Herbert hat Yesteryear: A Novel von Caro Claire Burke besprochen

Yesteryear

4,0 stars

A captivating look at motherhood from the perspective of an unlikable woman who believes its her Christian duty to have children, a wealthy husband, and a brand that represents the life she thinks she should have (rather than the one she wants). Yesteryear is about womanhood, but it’s also about the traps we set for ourselves, the toxicity of influencers and social media, and the unrealistic expectations women attempt to fill in order to be respected by other women.

Sandra

bewertet es mit

September 9