kris’s review of Yesteryear > Likes and Comments

a quick google reveals she is likely in her early 30s and was raised catholic republican. that is young, although not early-20s young.

Highly suggest you listen to the diabolical lies podcast “the caro episode” because you’re entirely missing the mark on who this author is and what her goal was in writing this book.

Not young enough to understand internet politics and culture though.

Felt the same way! It had absolutely zero depth or engagement with the issues she tackled. Felt very much like white woman writing about the world from her ivory tower.

I didn’t recognize this as satire. 🤷‍♀️

I found it hard to pick our timeline also. The flip phone gift was giving 90s/00s vibes. The HIV scare was giving 80s/early 90s. The swap to IG and people going viral was giving more 2014 energy. The idea we are talking about tradwives is giving post 2020 energy. How do we go from no cell to flip phone at Clementine’s birth but she is only 13 when everything goes to pot? Then the whole flash forward storyline must happen in the future because Mary is 15/16. It was very difficult to orient myself in what era I was in at any given moment.

Yes!!! Every word of this! This book has been written to satisfy a certain readership, who will be eagerly awaiting the FMC's downfall. But it has nothing to say beyond that and it is a frankly shockingly lazy depiction of the people it clearly despises. You have to know something to satirise is well and the author clearly only knows what she can be bothered to read on social media.

I really feel like you missed the entire point of this book. I don’t think anything about this was supposed to be satire. And I don’t think the point of the FMC was to make her completely evil. The longer the book went on, the more facets of her you discovered. I found her very complex.

The book was poorly written and clearly hit all the right points for getting published - appeal to your angry leftist audience

I’m so interested to see the comments saying this book isn’t satire… It’s marketed as satire. Come on girls 🫠

Sounds like this hit a nerve for you…

Seems like it challenged you. And as a result you didn’t like it…..

Simo I asppreciate you saying that. i like the time travel, but in the end it wasn't time travel and that makes it's so confusing. If it was a choice which I feel is stated then why didn't she know whe could leave. Oh, she couldn't leave because of the deal she made to live that way to repent.

I was confused about the time, because she’s 33 in let’s say the “present” when we meet her. Which is the same as me, ok so we went to college the same time (both in Boston!) cool cool… wait, her mom calls the school dorm phone? Wtf that isn’t a thing in 2009/2010. Wait, a flip phone?? I had an iPhone by then…. Ok so maybe she’s older than me but then how is she using Instagram?

I thought this book worked well, because it shows the dangers of extremism. Here we see a religious character that doesn’t attend church ever? She’s clutching onto recited Bible verses (usually out of context) and has swung into the extreme to judge anyone that is not like HER (she’s not using church or religion, but HERSELF as the baseline and using religion to justify it. She’s inserted herself as a Savior here). I also thought it was interesting to see how the husband was being pulled into his ideology online - telling him what a “Man” is but he was only ever conditioned to not be a woman (we see this as he gives up his only passions- wanting to teach Kinder and love playing with his kids because it wasn’t “manly”). Both of these characters could have benefitted from more balance, but they pretended to stick themselves into tiny gender role boxes, when they both HATED it (she hated being a mom, he hated providing) and yet they sold the lie of what a family is “supposed” to be like to millions.

People are being weirdly defensive about this book. It's obviously going to be popular and there's clearly a huge market for it, but your review is fair. You have to know something to satirise it and the author clearly doesn't. There are more insightful critiques of online tradwifeism on GOMI and that's not a compliment.

Nah it challenged you and you got all in your feelings about it

This review is genuinely incoherent

This review and the comments are, ironically a perfect mirror to a lot of what this book is actually reflecting.

I actually think the protagonist came across as incredibly developed and nuanced! I, who would typically see a MC like her to be awful and a joke, was challenged to reconsider my judgment. It does sound like this hit a nerve for you though!

I completely disagree, at the start, the MC was described as a young woman who wanted to escape the traditional expectations of women within her religious community. She wanted to challenge herself academically, to gain a different insight of the world.

However, it was a culture shock for her and she struggled immensely at making friends. She was essentially bullied for being different which pushed her to internet forums to understand why she was being treated differently - leading to radicalisation. The MC was based upon stereotypes because the MC reinvented her entire persona to match a stereotypical traditional homemaker, she characterised women into two categories - “angry women” i.e. liberal/ left leaning women and women “like her” I.e. traditional, home makers.

You seemed to have completely missed key themes throughout the book, I’d advise you to reread

This isn’t the first review where I’ve seen someone say that the FMC didn’t come across as a real person. I hate to break it to you, but people do exist that are like Natalie. You may not have encountered them in your personal life, but I have. I found it to be very believable. People do talk like her and act like her IRL. Nothing about this book was satire. Anyone who writes a review claiming that it is clearly missed the point. She has a mental illness and was also raised in a strictly Christian family that kept her from understanding her own identity. Also, not everyone had iPhones in 2010. I was still using a phone that slid open with a full keyboard in 2011 which was my freshman year of college, so no, the technology thing isn’t off. Not everyone had transitioned yet to smart phones. Flip phones were still new at my high school in like 2008.

I guess I don’t really understand the point of your review. You act as if women don’t suffer in real life and therefore books about a woman who actually suffered her whole life should not exist. There are other experiences and existences outside of your own. Learn some empathy. That’s the whole point of reading a book.

Agreed, and well said. As an exvangelical, I found the lack of research especially galling. She mixes so many faith practices that it takes me totally out of the story, and the fact that she evidently doesn't think the main character could possibly enjoy her children as a mom was... a choice. One that I think will alienate what could have been a profound, impactful story.

I know raising kids can be difficult, and I have none of my own. I'm no longer religious. But it seems especially strange to make her such a caricature when in fact many people do love children and dedicate their lives to taking care of them because it brings them joy, not dollars--an idea no one (not the main character, nor the women she loathes at her university) seems to know is a thing that happens.

*"One that I think will alienate what could have been a main audience of a profound, impactful story."

This character isn’t meant to represent all Christian woman or all trad wives. She’s one woman and these are her characteristics. So this one woman doesn’t like being a mother - what’s hard to understand about that?

And I think making her religion somewhat of an amalgamation of Christianities was also a choice. There’s no reason to take this character personally or for her to make anyone defensive. I think the fact that people are offended by how she was drawn says more about them than the author’s work.

If you had to google when iPhones were invented, and didn't realize that not everyone went out and bought them right away, you really don't understand how the 2000s-2010s worked. Many people didn't adopt phones right away in 2007. I was an early adopter when I got one in 2011. Most people still had flip phones or sliders. The internet on your phone plan was still pricy then. And text messages cost me 25c in 2007, why would I rush out and get an iphone. Second, the mix of faith practices actually made sense to me as an evangelical. People do speak like her, and it made perfect sense.

ugh!! I am about 63% in and really enjoying it but I am inching towards having a similar opinion. I think it'll still be a solid 4 for me but I definitely validate this

I actually think that the college scenes take place at least a solid 10 years prior to when you are imagining - and what I was imagining when I read those scenes as well. But if you factor in the fact that the last chapter moves us forward 10 years from the rest of the book and assuming that the ending of the book is happening in the current day, I think the college scenes are actually from the early to mid 2000's but there definitely did seem to be some confusion from the author on what college scenes at that period of time looked like.

I am sorry I wasted time reading it.

I agree with you 100%.

Are you unfamiliar with Ballerina Farms? One quick glance at Hannah’s Instagram confirms it’s written with her as inspiration. She even used “yesteryear” in a caption in her one of her posts in 2020.

You nailed everything I hated about this book.

I appreciate this review. Two stars for me….

Completely agree. It’s like it was written by AI using a prompt full of buzzwords. So shallow!

Nailed it! Just a bunch of biased stereotypes and virtually zero character development here. We get it Natalie is a terrible person. But what is the point ? What is her journey here? And for what? What was even the motive behind this story. She was just a conglomerate of the authors own terrible biases and stereotypes wrapped into one underdeveloped FMC. I guess modern woman good. Religious and traditional woman dumb and bad. Is that it?

Speaking of no research, her Father In Law is on his 8th senate term (as a far republican in California??) and is 55. Senate terms are 6 years which would mean he started in the senate at age 13?

“Strawman” is a bit of a reach considering I had multiple real life TikTok/youtube abusive moms in my mind as I read this. The ending felt very similar to Shari Franke’s memoir.

As someone who grew up in rural Christian America, yes, it is very much realistic and shows proper research 😭 it’s not so much a caricature as a genuine peek behind the curtain.

As someone who actually went to college in this “era” (lol), can confirm I has a flip phone in 2010. I graduated college in 2012 and still had a flip phone. Smart phones and iPhones were definitely not the norm. I remember thinking it was so cool that my boyfriend had an iPod that could tap into the campus WiFi. 🤣 love that you’re calling out an author in her early 20s when you’re still under 30. And I also firmly disagree that this book was satire.

I agree. I couldn’t finish it. And I hate not finishing a book.

Completely agree with every point you made. You put into words what I couldn’t quite pinpoint what I disliked about the authors style and messaging here. It really felt like there was no real plot. Just a whole book yelling at you basically 😂

100% agree with your comments, especially that this isn’t satire, it’s just mocking.

As someone who didn't get their first smart phone until like... 2013/2014, I definitely cannot relate to that part of the review at all. Also, I do think that there is a lot of room for nuance, it just depends on how you want to read the book. I left the book feeling a lot of empathy for the MC.

She couldn’t even properly describe how to make sourdough or what happens when you over or under proof it lol the research was severely lacking on the authors part.

Nice try. Except for this: there are women out there who are doing what Natalie is doing in the book, that is, cosplaying a traditional wife, while other people are doing the real work in the background, AND telling everyone else they should be traditional wives while these women are actually working. Google Hannah Needman and Ballerina Farm. Educate yourself.

You nailed it. This is fake feminism for basic bitches. No one cares about anyone in this book and guess what— I could care less about any of it. The dog whistle bs she spews and then— trauma porn extravaganza just introduced and then…. dropped.

Your math is a little off… you have to remember that present-day Natalie has adult children. That means her college days were closer to 2000 than 2010. The book ends with her in her 50s. She started college at 17/18. If you’re going to try to tear apart someone for not doing enough research, make sure yours is accurate first.

Do you think the point is being missed that Caleb was probably also a little mentally ill? That maybe both their illnesses were feeding each other, and that’s why they stuck it out for so long? His father’s politics bled out not only to Caleb but also her, the story being from her POV maybe explains the lack of explanation for some of the social commentary you mentioned.

Man, I wish I lived in your world where Natalie came across as a strawman. I was drawing real world comparisons to multiple real life fundie and tradwife influencers. Natalie seems to me more an amalgamation than a strawman.

Me too! I finished it thinking… what was the point? 😅 It completely did not live up to the hype for me. Unlikable characters can work when there’s growth or some deeper payoff, but there was basically no character development at all. It felt like the book kept circling interesting themes without ever actually saying anything meaningful about them. Pretty aesthetic wrapping paper, empty box inside.