Book Review – Yesteryear

“My eldest daughter was like me, not just in likeness but in disposition, too: she held her intelligence like a knife behind her back. Now that she was creeping towards womanhood, I found our similarities a bit unnerving. Like watching a clone of myself walk slowly toward me from a faraway point in the distance: What would happen when she arrived? 

I’m aware this isn’t the kind of thing you’re meant to feel about your own daughter. But motherhood is its own kind of curation. Which is to say: every woman I know lied to me about what it would be like, before I became one myself.”

Hi folks,

There’s been a lot of talk about this book that came out in April. There’s reportedly already a movie in the works with Anne Hathaway playing the lead. Libby users know how long it takes to get a new release. For some strange reason there were a zillion copies of Yesteryear available in both the e-book and the audio version so I didn’t have to wait long. This is the debut novel for the author who also co-hosts the podcast Diabolical Lies.

Yesteryear on the surface is about a successful influencer Natalie Heller. Natalie’s online content focuses on her family and their farm. To her viewers she promotes a make the home/country great again traditional wife and mother of many image. You know, the I cook everything from scratch perennially pregnant with offspring named Thyme and Cotton type. Natalie wakes up one day and she apparently has been transported back in time to the OG traditional wife time period of the 1850s.

So, thoughts on the book. I read it in one sitting. I was laying down but you know what I mean. I kept turning the page because I was locked in to finding out what was going on. I think the first two-thirds of the book was done very well. However, in my humble no book with film rights optioned opinion, in the last third of the book the train left the rails. I didn’t know that the book was already being made into a film when I was reading it. Knowing that now I suspect the author was writing for a big screen translation which for a debut author is pretty audacious. Go girl. Overall, it was and entertaining ride. Not enough for me to buy for my personal library but a solid 3-3.5/5 rating. I would recommend you check it out especially if unhinged endings are your thing. I’m suggesting it for my family book club and I can’t wait to hear their thoughts.

Have a great week!

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