\n<\/p>\n
This article is part of\u00a0<\/i>Upstream,<\/i><\/a>\u00a0The Daily Wire\u2019s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories \u2014 from our featured writers to you.<\/i><\/p>\n ***<\/i><\/p>\n Reading a synopsis for the buzzy new novel \u201cYesteryear\u201d by Caro Claire Burke put me on high alert. As an avid reader dependent upon an overwhelmingly liberal publishing industry, I\u2019m used to disagreeing with most of the themes and insight of popular fiction. But this one seemed egregious.<\/span><\/p>\n The description says, \u201cA 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 \u2014 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Despite my misgivings, I had to read it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s no use sugarcoating it: I hated this book. But it wasn\u2019t because I believe trad wife influencers are above reproach, or even that I think it\u2019s beneficial to watch them peddling impossibly perfect lives on social media. It\u2019s because this could have been a discussion-worthy commentary on the fake-ness of content creators, performative motherhood, or even the realities of homesteading in the modern world.\u00a0<\/span>Instead, readers are treated to outlandish caricatures.<\/span><\/p>\n It all starts on the first page as the protagonist describes herself: \u201cAnd who was I? A flawless Christian woman. A manic pixie American dream girl of this nation\u2019s 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\u2019t make sense, by also, by God: it worked \u2026 I was perfect at being alive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYesteryear\u201d is being marketed as satirical just so the author can say no, she\u2019s not being mean; she\u2019s just being <\/span>funny<\/span><\/i>. It\u2019s really just code for, \u201cI want to say something lazy and insulting, but I also want immunity from criticism.\u201d If you don\u2019t like it, it\u2019s because you\u2019re overly sensitive or you don\u2019t get the joke. If you do like it, congratulations! You got to feel morally superior while consuming liberal fever dream propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n In Burke\u2019s world, conservative women are fake, Christian women are performative, husbands are abusive, followers are stupid, and every conservative person ever is secretly miserable, plus just objectively awful. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the whole thing. Every character exists to prove that stereotypes are reality.<\/span><\/p>\n The main character, Natalie, is not-so-subtly based on the <\/span>most famous trad wife influencer<\/span><\/a> of them all, the Juilliard-trained ballerina turned influencer Hannah Neeleman, aka Ballerina Farm. Her family-run farm, old-fashioned kitchen, and overall aesthetic launched a tidal wave of copycats and haters. It would appear this author falls into the latter camp.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYesteryear\u201d protagonist Natalie is presented as a trad wife influencer who screams at her kids between photos, snaps at her husband, and treats her family like props for content. She despises her husband (\u201can actual, honest-to-God idiot\u201d), her mother, her sister, her kids, and really everyone in her life, saying that \u201cmost people are morons.\u201d She joins coaching calls full of Christian women with Idaho cattle farms trying to \u201cmake it big\u201d online. The followers who call her out for being fake are collectively known as \u201cangry women.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s not even clear why Natalie is in the game other than to make money. Even after hitting the big time, her sour attitude never changes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And Natalie, while pretending to be deeply religious \u2014 not just as the narrator, but also to herself \u2014 does things like call people she doesn\u2019t like \u201cc*nt\u201d and then semi-apologize in the form of a prayer. \u201cSorry, Lord, but really, f*** her,\u201d she thinks to herself after an unpleasant encounter with a fan at Target.<\/p>\n It appears the author genuinely cannot imagine that any woman might sincerely want marriage, children, homemaking, or a more traditional family structure. In this worldview, if a woman says she likes that life, she must be lying, oppressed, dumb, or running a scam. Or in this case, actually disturbed and dissociating.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But <\/span>it\u2019s satire.<\/span><\/i> We\u2019re all supposed to pretend this is comedy when it clearly represents a deep contempt for conservative women. The book is saying what a lot of progressive women already believe: These women are frauds, and we\u2019re smarter than them<\/em>. <\/span>How original.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, once Natalie goes back in time, her husband beats her. He rapes her, too. Because if he\u2019s a man from the late 1800s, naturally, he has to be a violent monster. And then \u2014 spoiler alert \u2014 it turns out he\u2019s really a modern man acting like he\u2019s from the past. The ending makes less sense than the lead-up, and all of it amounts to nothing more than grievance-driven fiction.<\/span><\/p>\n And now for the real spoiler alert. The big twist turns Natalie into a rapist. Yes, Natalie. Her husband\u2019s father, a staunch conservative, is running for president, but then Natalie\u2019s producer reveals that her boss raped her. At first the family believes the rapist is Caleb, making them annoyed but not entirely outraged because, as it\u2019s presented, these things can be swept under the rug. But when they find out it was Natalie sexually assaulting the young woman, all hell breaks loose.<\/p>\n \u201cIf only my husband had raped our producer,\u201d the book says. \u201cThat was basically what [her father-in-law] said that night, what he roared for hours and hours \u2026 if only his stupid little son had raped our stupid little producer \u2026 it would\u2019ve been over with and forgotten in two weeks. But a predatory woman? Unthinkable. A good Christian mother and wife who (allegedly!) found other women attractive? \u2026 Kill the witch. Burn her.\u201d<\/p>\n The solution Natalie comes up with for her misdeed is going off-grid with her family and turning her house into the fantasy she had been projecting online all along. She disconnects from the outside world completely, lives like it\u2019s the 1800s, and ignores the fallout from the tell-all interview that ruined her life. Her older children, led by her surly daughter, run away from home, and then Natalie mostly disassociates and forgets she ever lived in modern times, aided by crushed up pills served in the form of a \u201ccalming tonic.\u201d<\/p>\n Natalie\u2019s husband remains a loser who sneaks off every day pretending to farm but is really watching TV in a nearby cabin and picking up grocery deliveries. They have more children because in their fake 19th-century world, suddenly his impotence is gone and he keeps impregnating his wife. The book ends with Natalie\u2019s older children coming to rescue the younger kids who don\u2019t realize there\u2019s a modern world out there. Natalie goes to prison for aggravated child abuse.<\/p>\n Even mainstream media outlets admitted \u201cYesteryear\u201d isn\u2019t that great. Harper\u2019s Bazaar <\/span>called it<\/span><\/a> a \u201cvaguely feminist fairy tale\u201d that only works \u201cwhen you don\u2019t think too much about it.\u201d Vox said<\/a> it \u201coffers a sadistic influencer comeuppance fantasy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Plenty of GoodReads reviewers found the book to be about as deep as a driveway puddle. One reader called it \u201ca mean-spirited revenge fantasy against a strawman the author made up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIn my experience, satire is supposed to say something, not just be an overt open mocking. I understand why this book will be popular, especially considering modern trends in literature, but all the positive reviews make me feel like someone\u2019s trying to prank me a little bit,\u201d the reviewer <\/span>wrote<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Another reader said the story was actually detrimental to the cause of feminism because the characters \u201cdon\u2019t seem like real people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And that\u2019s what annoyed me most. This book could have been thought-provoking. There is a genuinely interesting story to tell about women turning their homes, marriages, and children into content, and about influencers pretending to live in 19th-century cabins while secretly using a behind-the-scenes microwave. That would be interesting. This, however, was not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, the author took the laziest possible route, declaring that all trad wives are fake, all conservative men are monsters, all religious women are grifters, and all enlightened readers should just laugh at them. <\/span>What you\u2019re left with is not actually satire. It\u2019s just a smug piece of trash that will sell a million copies because liberal women love it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n