I Read The Tradwife Satire Book | ★★★ Review of Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hello and welcome back to Kayla Reads.

[00:00:02]If you are here for the first time, I run a YouTube channel called Kayla Says.

[00:00:08]This is not my normal background that you'll see in the background of the Kayla says videos or the Kayla Reads videos. And the reason for that is because I moved apartments and while I've been moving, as you can see behind me, things are not set up yet. I have been setting up and I have been listening to the audio book for yestery year which is the debut novel of an author named Carol Claire Burke and this book has made a lot of waves in its short lifetime. It was recently optioned by Anne Hathaway which means that eventually it's probably going to be made into a movie or a TV show of some kind. Uh it's been on all of these recommendation lists. It's very hyped up and I'm gonna be honest, I was apprehensive because this kind of book is not the type of book I typically go for. And I'll explain what I mean. Wow, this room is like really sorry it's so echoey in here, guys. I guess it's cuz like there's not stuff in here yet, but I'm like listening to my own echo and I'm like this is weird. So, let me quickly explain sort of the hook of this book. And don't worry, I will not get into spoilers right now. I will denote when we are getting into spoiler territory, but the the hook of this book is a trad wife influencer one day wakes up in the year 1855.

[00:01:24]So obviously there's a lot of irony just in that concept. And the book is a satire. It's meant to be sort of, you know, a commentary. It's meant to be like funny in its own sort of dark, bizarre way. But I usually don't love books personally where the entire intrigue of it is purely just the concept. You know what I mean? It's almost like I can compare it to like the Purge series of films, right? Great concept, not always the best execution because the story often relies on the concept itself and isn't character-based and isn't necessarily into getting to know uh characters in an interesting or unique way. And so I heard about this book. I was like hesitant to really dive into it, but people were saying that it was really good. But I went into it knowing that like just from the concept alone, I didn't think it was going to be my cup of tea necessarily. I'm gonna choose to frame this in a positive way and say that I went into this book thinking I wasn't going to like it. And I liked it a little more than I thought I was going to. But I still didn't like it that much. I don't love it as much as other people do. I'll get into why. I gave it a three on Goodreads and I think that's fair considering that what I do love about this book is the pros is the writing. I think this author is a very talented writer. You are reading or listening from the perspective of the protagonist, this influencer trad uh Natalie. And I think like the pros is great. There's just some really great uh sort of lines and internal monologue and commentary in here. And I I think I would like pick up another book from this author based on that alone. Uh however, I do have some mixed feelings about like the book divorced from its writing. This book puts you into the mindset of a trad wife. And you know, I I don't I've talked publicly on my own YouTube channel about how I don't like these [ __ ] right? these Nara Smith type [ __ ] Uh, I think this is more of like a a Ruby Frankie inspired character than it is Nara Smith. Uh, maybe it's a, you know, it's kind of like a a combination of like those two, the Mormon wives, girls, whatever. And like I don't I don't like these women, you know what I mean? And the the issue that I've always had with them is that they live this trad lifestyle and pretend to be subservient to their husbands and they put out this propaganda and this like fake sort of lifestyle, but they're business women.

[00:04:14]They have jobs. They are entrepreneurs in the traditional sense. They just pretend like they're not. They pretend like they're not smart. They pretend like they're birds. And and that is just like how they are. And this book does make commentary on that in an interesting way. For example, uh Natalie's husband Caleb is kind of an idiot. Like he's not smart. He's like a legacy money type of guy. Uh and I thought that was an interesting choice because it does put Natalie in the position of like being the architect, being the driver of this whole uh sort of world where she even says at one point that she like wishes that the genders were reversed. she feels like it she would be better off if she were a man and Caleb were a woman. And I think that commentary was good, was interesting, was what I wanted to see from a book like this. But you can just sort of feel the disdain that this author has for women like this, which like fair, they [ __ ] suck. like yes, but also it's kind of it makes it almost predictable in a way where it's it's sort of the rest of the commentary besides the sort of gendered aspect of these relationships which I found interesting was very on the nose like oh my god you're telling me that they don't actually all eat organic you know what I mean like I won't get into like really deep spoilers about how their influencer life is fake but like I I don't really think that's a spoiler obviously everyone who's living this TRD wife influencer uh life is doing it in a dishonest way to some degree, but I found the way that all of that sort of unraveled um to be very predictable. And also, it just gets a little exhausting being in the head of this like bird of a woman like because she's smart and she's calculating, but she just kind of like gets under your skin and that's intentional and you're just sort of like you're being primed for the demise.

[00:06:14]You're waiting for the demise because she's not a good person. Um, but I just felt like it made the book more predictable uh in a way that that wasn't as interesting to me. I also just and I've seen this this I've seen two main critiques of this book and I believe both of them to be true. The first one is that this feels like something that got written with the intent of making it into a a Hulu limited miniseries which like take that as you will. You know what that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[00:06:44]I'm just saying it does feel that way.

[00:06:46]And the second thing is that it almost feels like this author just sort of created this caricature of this woman based on what she reads in Tradife influencer snark Reddits. And I'm not saying that, you know, the book is necessarily it is devoid of empathy for this woman, but I'm not saying the book necessarily needs to have empathy for her. You can have a reprehensible protagonist. uh you can be in the head of a protagonist who like doesn't make the right decisions and has some really questionable uh morals and values. I think that's interesting. I think that's fine. But what I found was that a lot of like the the influencer commentary here uh was very sort of surface level. It didn't get all of the aspects of like these sorts of pipelines correct in my opinion. every time it referenced something that was like really, you know, sort of on the nose. Like at one point, um Natalie is like, "Caleb's been watching these videos and he he's really into them uh with his buddies online. Um it's called the Manosphere." And it's like I you know, I don't it just didn't there were certain aspects of the commentary that did not land for me in that way. As far as the 1800's plot, I can't really talk about it without getting into spoilers, I fear, because it's it's it's there, but it's not there in the way that you think. So, brief uh synopsis here before I get into spoilers. Uh I think that other people obviously like it's been like raved about are going to have a better time with this than me. Uh this is just like not the type of thing that I'm really into. And so, like, I I'm trying not to let it cloud my bias. I think the writing is good. I think this author is pretty competent. Um, it just wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I gave it a three out of five. Okay, spoiler time. So, you might think from the marketing of this book that it's like we get a little bit of this wife influencers life and then she wakes up suddenly in the 1800s. And that's a little bit like what it's like at the beginning. And then what the book actually does is it it jumps back and forth between Natalie in this 1855 life, but she has all of her memories of like her trad influencer. So she like thinks that she's been like kidnapped. She thinks she's on some kind of reality show. And it flickers between like her life in this 1855 sort of like dream state where we don't really know why she's there and flashbacks of her like in college and the process of like becoming an influencer and all of the scandals and drama that sort of arise with that and culminate in this final scandal. I'll give this book credit.

[00:09:37]This this twist at the end is not where I thought it was going because I thought it was going to be and it sort of is that you know it culminates in this scandal that makes her look really bad.

[00:09:47]You know, all the stuff that you would think in terms of a child uh family vlogger, influencer, triedwife getting exposed for like bad stuff, you know what I mean? Like whatever you think that is, like that's what happens. Uh and so like I'm like, "Oh, okay. She can't handle the pressure of all of that." And so she kind of like develops some kind of psychosis. That's sort of what actually happens. Uh but also what happens and what we learn is that after this whole tradife influencer lifestyle blew up in her face, Caleb and Natalie decide to raise the rest of their remaining kids in like a true pioneer lifestyle, like off the grid. They don't send their kids to school. They don't have any sort of modern luxury whatsoever. They disconnect from social media entirely and Natalie's psychotic break sort of coincides in a way where Caleb is keeping up this delusion for her. So she thinks that like you know she was an influencer and then woke up in this in this sort of world. Uh but but really what's happening is that uh she made like sort of this conscious decision at some point to like disconnect from reality after this scandal happened and uh a lot of her kids like grew up and like left and went to the modern world and then she was still raising uh these kids in this like ultra offthegrid uh surviving the fallout pioneer lifestyle. the older kids basically like rescue the younger kids from this situation and then one of the younger kids uh from this like pioneer lifestyle writes a tell- all book Allah like the Ruby Frankie kids about what it was like to grow up with like a delusional like mentally ill mom and then it ends with like Natalie like in in prison sort of just like you know suffering from these delusions still I didn't think that was where it was going to go so I I'll give the book that. Uh I just think it gets a little over dramatic and silly toward the end. Uh I I just think there are certain things that happen where it's like, "All right, this is a little bit over the top." Not that it has to be realistic. Obviously, it's a satire. I just think this lady really wanted to write about how she hates Ruby Frankie. Like that that's just how it came off to me. I don't know. And again, like I just I it is competently written. I and I I don't want people to think that I'm [ __ ] on like the trendy thing for the sake of [ __ ] on the trendy thing. I just think that this wasn't for me. The concept was not strong enough uh for me to like be really invested. And it's not like like it's very cynical throughout like and I can handle that. You know what I I mean, like I I I I don't I don't mind that sort of thing, but I just was like it almost like I feel like it would have been better if I I had more of the perspective of the kids, you know what I mean? Like I I almost feel like that that would have given me something to root for like an inkling of like something human in the book. Like it almost reminds me of how like The Boys does satire now, you know, where it's just like so on the nose and and predictable that it's like you just you just kind of roll your eyes at it. Like that's that's how I felt throughout. I would give this author another shot. I look forward to the inevitable Anne Hathaway miniseries. Like this is going to be the new Handmaid's Tale. This was optioned because it 100% fills the handmaid's tail void uh in the era that we're living in. And some people are really going to live for that. And I personally maybe I just have a different standard when it comes to like books discussing the more modern internet age. I just I needed a little more from it. That's that's just me though. Like I I'm sorry. Like I I hate it. It does not floor me to come on here and like be a hater of the thing that's really popular, you know? Like it's not it's not ideal, but I have to be honest.

[00:13:52]I can't come on here and be like, "It was it was amazing. It was like the best book I I ever read cuz like it's just like it's for me it's not." But I hope you enjoy it if you pick it up or you listen to the audiobook or whatever.

[00:14:04]Thank you so much for listening everyone. This has been Kayla Reeds. I'm going to go back to um creating some semblance of an apartment and maybe trying to get rid of this echo and like maybe try to figure out how to soundproof the walls in here. Bye.