I keep telling myself I need to stop falling for all the book recommendations because they usually end in disappointment. Then I remember Theo of Golden, my first and only six-star read in all the years I’ve been reading, and convince myself to give another one a chance.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t Theo of Golden. This one left me disappointed. Keep scrolling for my full review.
Main Characters
- Natalie Heller Mills
- Caleb Mills
- Shannon
- Clementine
Publisher’s Summary
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 heir to a political dynasty? 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 ruthless 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.
Recent Reviews
Book Review: Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
Let’s start with the positives because I don’t want to be too harsh on this book. The writing itself is good. It flows effortlessly from chapter to chapter, and I never felt like I had to force myself to keep reading. I was invested the whole time, wanting to know what would happen next.
Now, the main character? Incredibly frustrating. But honestly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Sometimes the characters you can’t stand are the ones that prove how talented an author is. If a character can make you feel that strongly, they’ve done their job.
Where the book lost me was the ending. I finished it with more questions than answers, and that’s never the feeling I want after investing hours into a story. What actually happened that caused her to spiral? What changed after Shannon’s interview? And why did Caleb go along with everything? I kept waiting for all the pieces to click into place, but they never really did.
The buildup had so much potential, but the ending just didn’t deliver for me. Instead of tying everything together, it left me feeling unsatisfied, and unfortunately, that overshadowed a lot of what the book did well.
Listen or Buy Now
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My Favorite Quotes from “Yesteryear” by Caro Claire
The way some women so willingly compromised every ounce of themselves in the name of building a life for themselves that they didn’t enjoy.
― Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
I felt like I needed to throw a dish towel over his penis and wait an hour to let it rise.
― Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
The truth is that whoring yourself out can take you pretty far, if you do it with intention. Look at Mary Magdalene. Now there is a woman who understood the assignment.
― Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
The boys would keep us fed when we were old and feeble, I liked to say, but the girls? They would dance around our wheelchairs, toss rose petals over our graves.
― Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear
Yesteryear Book Adaptation Starring Anne Hathaway
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