Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel

At first, I had a hard time getting into the story because the chapters jumped between the past and present, and the pacing felt a little slow. But around 30–40% in, it picked up and I became intrigued. I really enjoyed Natalie’s character development and found this to be a unique and thought-provoking read. I liked how it portrayed these women as both victims and perpetrators shaped by societal pressures and desperation, but also responsible for the choices they make and how far they take them. I also appreciated the commentary on how women are raised to care so much about appearances and what others think, as well as the exposure of children on social media. Overall, a slow start but a unique read that gave me a lot to think about.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke’s 2026 debut literary novel, is a depiction of what has become one of the most dire and consequential crises facing “everyman“ in the early 21st century. “This is the last day of the life I imagined for myself (3)…A flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of this nation‘s deepest, darkest fantasies. The mother every woman wanted to be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to. Like a nun in a porno, it didn’t make sense, but also, by God: it worked” ( 4). Except it didn’t work, did it? While Natalie slaved away at drawing everyone around her into creating her delusional world of perfection (first, her husband, then her children, and eventually millions of social media fans), she was actually destroying every real relationship she had ever had, from her family, right down to her own sane mind. Of course, humankind has always struggled with tamping down delusions of grandeur since the garden of Eden, (when Eve was deluded into thinking she could be like God himself). But since the creation of social media, this problem has been exacerbated to such extent that there are most likely few people aware that in some way, small or large, they are promoting and participating in something similar to our protagonist Natalie. What we show others on social media is not actually our real lives since we leave out the not quite so palatable “stuff” we don’t want others to see. (And thank the Lord for that! Right?) To some extent, we have all been trained to share the narrative of our lives with others this way on this type of platform where we filter our lives through the lens of what we want others to see. Naturally, we don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Harry knowing all our personal problems. However, the scary reality now is that we have produced an entire generation of grown children that have few to no safe personal relationships with which they feel comfortable sharing the full story, the real story of their lives. Instead, they have grown up only knowing this type of one way filtered relationship - the one that is presented to the world. Burke is very clearly warning us not to get caught up in the show, trying to escape or imagine away all that is ugly and difficult about our lives. Instead, we need real relationships unfiltered by the lens of social media, friends and loved ones we can walk with authentically in our journeys. Burke has sadly chosen Christianity and its communities to illustrate her ideas because many of our religious institutions are very susceptible to promoting this same kind of sanctimonious, self-righteous delusional show as our protagonist, Natalie. Jesus thought the same, which is why he pointed out this very thing to the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 23. He famously calls them “hypocrites,” who do things for show, while neglecting mercy, kindness, and justice. As for the false perfection portrayed by the tradwife movement, it’s a lie that continues to cycle through the ages. It just has a cute little name now, but lies of deception will always eventually implode, and anyone with wisdom knows that everything worth having in life comes with enormous obstacles and problems that must be overcome before the benefits of their work can be enjoyed. An easy 5 stars for me, which I hardly ever give! Read it! All thoughts are 100% mine alone, except where credit is given in the text.

The back and forth between the two times was perfect. It gave a great illusion of things taking place in different time frames. A completely different time frame than what it was portraying, which made the plot twist pretty good. The ending was a little hard to keep up with but was able to figure out what was going on.

I love the trad wife books being published lately, and this one was fantastic. I both felt horrible for Natalie's life, and also hated her. The book is very well-written, and I felt it's quite realistic. I could name a few influencers whom this reminded me of!

Great book and something unlike anything I have ever read.