Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

After seeing Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke all over social media for what felt like months, I finally gave in to the hype and picked it up.

The premise sounded like exactly the kind of thing I should enjoy.

A social media trad wife influencer suddenly wakes up in 1855 and is forced to confront the reality of the lifestyle she has spent her career romanticizing online. Is this new life real? Is it some kind of elaborate dream? Can she get back to the present? More importantly, what happens when the fantasy you’ve built your identity around collides with the reality of history?

On paper, that’s a fantastic setup.

In execution, this one completely missed the mark for me.

I should probably start by acknowledging that I’m clearly in the minority here. This book has received a tremendous amount of praise, and I’ve seen countless glowing reviews celebrating its satire, social commentary, and sharp observations. Going in, I expected something clever, biting, and maybe even a little uncomfortable in the best possible way.

Instead, I spent most of the book wishing I was reading something else.

The biggest issue for me was the characters. I know some readers don’t mind unlikable characters if they’re interesting, and sometimes I’m one of those readers. There are plenty of books where everyone is terrible, and I still have a great time watching the chaos unfold.

That wasn’t the case here.

I didn’t just fail to identify with the main character. I actively disliked spending time with her. And unfortunately, because so much of the book depends on her perspective, that became a pretty significant problem.

The satire also didn’t land for me the way I hoped it would. I could see what the author was trying to do, and I understand why many readers connected with it. But rather than feeling sharp or insightful, much of it felt heavy-handed. Instead of becoming more invested as the story progressed, I found myself growing increasingly disconnected from what was happening.

And that’s a tough hurdle for any novel to overcome.

What made the experience even more frustrating was that I genuinely wanted to like it.

I love high-concept premises. I love books that use unusual setups to explore larger cultural conversations. I love stories that force characters to confront uncomfortable truths about themselves. Yesteryear had all the ingredients of something that should have worked for me.

But every time I thought the story might surprise me, it went exactly where I expected.

Even the twist, which I’ve seen many readers praise, felt fairly obvious to me relatively early on. That doesn’t automatically ruin a book, of course. Plenty of predictable stories are still enjoyable because the journey itself is compelling. In this case, though, the journey wasn’t enough to compensate for the lack of connection I felt to the characters.

There was a point where I seriously considered putting it down.

The only reason I kept going was that I wanted to understand what had generated so much enthusiasm from readers online. Surely there was going to be a moment where everything clicked into place, and I suddenly understood the hype.

That moment never arrived.

To be fair, I can see why this book has found an audience. Readers who enjoy satire, social commentary, and stories that directly engage with modern internet culture may have a very different experience than I did. The premise is undeniably clever, and there are plenty of people who seem to have connected deeply with what Burke was trying to accomplish.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them.

Sometimes I finish a book that didn’t work for me and still find myself recommending it to specific readers. I can usually point to an audience that will appreciate what I didn’t.

With Yesteryear, I’m struggling to do even that.

This is one of those rare cases where the premise was far more enjoyable than the actual reading experience.

I wanted to like it. I expected to like it. I kept reading because I thought I might eventually like it.

Instead, I mostly wish I had trusted my instincts and moved on sooner.

Not every viral book is for every reader, and this one was definitely not for me.