a month ago
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Posted On: September 23rd 2026, 10:38 pm
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𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬 🧺🌾🐄 *spoilers*
- ‘Yesteryear’ by Caro Claire Burke was very… interesting. I know this book had a lot of buzz and seemed to be the book of this summer or maybe even year? I’ve seen so many articles, press, reviews and feed posts regarding this. Whenever a book is highly publicized I try to avoid it for a while because I want to form my opinion on it. So here’s my honest opinion:
I didn’t really like it and it didn’t really wow me. I guess my expectations were a little jaded because I just saw so much about it (but still managed to avoid spoilers🤞🏼) and so I thought the plot twists were going to be this time-bending alternative life and it was just ohhhh she’s crazy… okay😂
The concept was interesting but felt as if it was a cop out instead of exploring deeper rooted issues and complexity of the characters. Using the influencer being cancelled storyline just felt so generic and something we kind of see all the time in real life?
Natalie was essentially lied to her whole life by her mother, who pretended to be a righteous woman and instilled these religious sanctimonious beliefs upon her children and then just drops them all at the end. So the topic of nature vs nurture comes up: were any of these characters innately good or bad? or were they just a product of their environment? I think that was ignored altogether and instead the story takes the easier route of lets just say they’re extremists, they’re a political dynasty in the making, without making us as readers have to think any deeper about these characters besides “wow they’re so unlikeable or not nice!” I would’ve liked to see more depth about the internalized hated, possible undiagnosed mental illness or even just a more critical look on family trauma/religious trauma.
If you’ve read this one, let me know your thoughts!💭
- ‘Yesteryear’ by Caro Claire Burke was very… interesting. I know this book had a lot of buzz and seemed to be the book of this summer or maybe even year? I’ve seen so many articles, press, reviews and feed posts regarding this. Whenever a book is highly publicized I try to avoid it for a while because I want to form my opinion on it. So here’s my honest opinion:
I didn’t really like it and it didn’t really wow me. I guess my expectations were a little jaded because I just saw so much about it (but still managed to avoid spoilers🤞🏼) and so I thought the plot twists were going to be this time-bending alternative life and it was just ohhhh she’s crazy… okay😂
The concept was interesting but felt as if it was a cop out instead of exploring deeper rooted issues and complexity of the characters. Using the influencer being cancelled storyline just felt so generic and something we kind of see all the time in real life?
Natalie was essentially lied to her whole life by her mother, who pretended to be a righteous woman and instilled these religious sanctimonious beliefs upon her children and then just drops them all at the end. So the topic of nature vs nurture comes up: were any of these characters innately good or bad? or were they just a product of their environment? I think that was ignored altogether and instead the story takes the easier route of lets just say they’re extremists, they’re a political dynasty in the making, without making us as readers have to think any deeper about these characters besides “wow they’re so unlikeable or not nice!” I would’ve liked to see more depth about the internalized hated, possible undiagnosed mental illness or even just a more critical look on family trauma/religious trauma.
If you’ve read this one, let me know your thoughts!💭
Comments (22)
a month agocmari.reads
I feel like a lot of people have said that this one didn’t live up to the expectation!
a month agoyourfriendlyobsession
I'm bummed you didn't love it. But I see what you're saying. I too was a little sad it didn't go the spec fic route ...but it was a doozy...and unique for sure!
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