Book Review: Yesteryear

Known as “the book of the year”, Yesteryear was a holiday book choice that I couldn't wait to read. After reading so many things online about the book and watching Tik Tok’s, I was finally going to find out all the hype. 

Yesteryear written by Caro Claire Burke is a psychological thriller all about mother and wife, Natalie. She runs a curated ranch in Idaho. When she finds out her husband is having an affair, she ends up in a domestic with the mistress, her perfect life starts to become destroyed. Her reality becomes her actual reality of the lie she has been living.

When I read the blurb of this book initially I couldn't quite figure out the storyline. What a treat I was in for. Throughout you flipped from the past and the present, building up to a moment at the end. I never expected what I was about to read. I couldn't figure out what was real and what to believe. When being in the mind of Natalie telling her story and waking up in her reality. You didn't know what to believe. Storylines kept changing and things were definitely put in place for further plot twists. I felt I was constantly wanting to figure out things as I went along. 

Overall I enjoyed this book, as a novel it is different from your average read. It was heavily influenced by 1800’s living but was relatable to the modern day. With social media, producing and typical husband/wife tropes. It was interesting to see and clever how Burke did this. Making it dystopian of the opposites. Merging the two I would’ve thought to be difficult but Burke did this effortlessly making it creepier than I imagined. 

It was a story of the pressure to be perfect, mental health and family. Natalie is constantly people pleasing which led to her downfall and also her family. This is linked with mental health and how a mothers mental health problems can impact their children and what they create from that in the future. 

I rated this five stars which makes it difficult to critique, but if anyone has been thinking about giving it a read please do and let us know what you think!