Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick

By Caro Claire Burke

Book Overview

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A GMA BOOK CLUB PICK - A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) - A traditional American woman, a "tradwife" influencer, suddenly awakens in the brutal reality of 1855--where she must unravel whether this living nightmare is an elaborate hoax, a twisted reality show, or something far more sinister in this sensational debut novel.

"A bold and biting satire, Yesteryear...will have you cackling and gasping right to the final page."
--Nita Prose, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid series

My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the heir to a political dynasty? What Natalie's followers--all 8 million of them--don't know won't hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They're sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn't simply living the good life, she's living the ideal--and just so happens to be building an empire from it.

Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn't hers. Her home, her husband, her children--they're all familiar, but something's off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she's expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a ruthless reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible.

A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 059380421X
• ISBN13: 9780593804216
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.1" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Twisty, Turny, Funny, and Sad

This was a phenomenal read! I could not put it down, I just had to figure out the twist. The writing is not only exceptional, it also really made me examine my own beliefs on womanhood, politics, religion, and the ways they intersect. It also brought up buried memories of my own experiences that I had forgotten but were so eerily similar to what the FMC experienced, it gave me pause. The story and the way Natalie was written really made me feel sympathy for a horrible character while commenting on all of the societal factors and people in her life that made her that way in a really thought-provoking and refreshing way. That's impressive. The challenge for me was the reveal of the twist itself. It was actually a bit too out there for me, and stretched the limits of my ability to suspend disbelief. So while it is a hell of a twist, it actually made the story less real to me, which diminished the impact. Overall, this is a really nuanced, layered, and balanced commentary on womanhood and the way we are forced (and force ourselves) to perform femininity to survive a patriarchy. And a pretty stunning reminder that many of us don't survive it at all.

Well that was different

I love an unlikable character with a twist at the end