I have many opinions on Yesteryear. As such, If you do intend to read Yesteryear, you should stop here and return when you finish. You can leave me a comment with your own thoughts.
I do want to start off on a more positive note. The book’s premise itself is incredible. The main idea of the book is a tradwife influencer named Natalie who gets transported back in time to the 1800s to live what she preaches. The story travels back and forth between the 1800s and the present day as the reader pieces together who Natalie is. As you piece together the bits and pieces of Natalie’s life, you’re left wondering: was she really transported back in time to the 1800s, was she kidnapped, or has she had a mental breakdown?
I was immediately intrigued by this book the moment I heard of it. Like many “angry women,” I patiently waited and got my copy as soon as it was released, swiping my own credit card for the transaction. (Thank you, Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974.)
Like many in this digital world, I’ve noticed a cultural shift. A pendulum swinging to the right. Spend five minutes on TikTok or Instagram, and you can easily find yourself swept up in the tradwife pipeline. How do you get there?
Well, take your pick… do you like gardening, baking, cooking, Pilates, or shopping? Have kids? You’ll find yourself there after long enough.
Regardless of how you got there, the destination is the same. Perform femininity correctly, and the patriarchy will reward you.
What happened to the girlboss era of Kat Stratford, Elle Woods, and Andy Sachs?
It’s a clear shift from modern egalitarian values back to more traditional gender roles.
But who are this next generation of women, and how did we get here? Caro Claire Burk attempts to answer the first question but falls short because she fails to consider the second.
Who is the book really about?
It’s no secret. The novel is based on the life of Hannah Neeleman. Before I get into why that is problematic, I want to explain who she is for those who may not know. Hannah Neeleman is a former ballerina turned tradwife influencer with over 10 million followers. Her aesthetic is beautiful, picturesque, and serene. She lives on a sprawling Utah farm with her husband and eight children. She promotes a life of traditional gender roles where she bakes sourdough bread, raises her own chickens, and homeschools her children.
The life portrayed is a fantasy. I choose this word intentionally. A fantasy, unlike an aspiration, is not based in reality.
Hannah Neeleman is not actually a tradwife; rather, she’s a hugely successful marketer, businesswoman, and CEO. She managed to turn her Instagram platform into a $70 million brand called Ballerina Farm. She has made millions, securing her financial freedom and independence while actively encouraging other women not to do the same.
Is financial independence the new form of gatekeeping?
While Ballerina Farm sells a variety of products, the primary product is, and has always been, Hannah Neeleman’s life itself. But this is a manufactured reality paid for through commissions, nannies, ranch hands, babysitters, producers, photographers, videographers, executives, and PR managers.
I describe Hannah in such detail because it’s the best way to describe Natalie. I don’t need to describe the main character now, because every detail is identical. The inspiration is so obvious that Natalie never feels like her own character. Effectively making Hannah a punching bag for the author and the readers who are only interested in affirming their own confirmation bias.
While this book seems to single out Hannah, she’s far from alone in this message. Many of the women on social media and in politics who advocate for traditional gender roles do so for their own financial gain, which runs contrary to their very message. I thought Natalie would be this type of character and that she was going to have her eyes opened to the harsh reality of what traditional gender roles have actually meant for women.
Instead, I got 57 chapters of rage bait literature. 57 chapters of “us vs them”. This is the type of feminism that assumes beauty and competence can’t coexist. It felt more like a personal attack on Hannah Neeleman than a commentary on how we got here.
The main character, from the beginning, was oversimplified. She was portrayed as an awful person with no depth or development throughout. The reader is never invited to understand Natalie, her motives, or her world view. It’s clear from the religious references that this author never did an ounce of research nor did she make any effort to understand women who have made choices different from her own.
In the book, Natalie attends Harvard University, making it clear that she’s a very intelligent and capable woman. (Hannah attended Juilliard.) The author then takes this intelligent, capable, and at times cunning character and oversimplifies her into a petty narcissist who believes, “Everyone is just jealous of me.” This was done with intention of justifying everything that happens to her and her own lack of redemption.
It’s shallow schadenfreude.
Natalie is intentionally written with so few redeeming qualities that the reader is invited not to understand her, but to enjoy watching her suffer for 57 chapters.
It’s mean-girl feminism.
Rather than interrogating an ideology, the novel caricatures a woman who represents it. That makes it emotionally satisfying for readers who already agree with its politics, but far less interesting for readers hoping to understand why this movement has attracted millions of followers
The book examines Natalie, and those like Natalie, in an isolated vacuum.
Oh, you want to return to traditional values? Well, let’s throw you back to the 1800s and see how you like it. But you don’t have to go back to 1855 to understand why traditional gender roles are dangerous for women. The Equal Credit Opportunity Act didn’t pass until 1974. Marital rape wasn’t made illegal nationwide until 1993, and one in three women will still experience some form of physical intimate partner violence during their lifetime.
Natalie never needed to have her foot caught in a bear trap to learn lessons in gender dynamics. But again, the book wasn’t about that. The book was about watching Natalie suffer – or, by extension, watching Neeleman suffer. Hence why the resemblance became so problematic for me personally.
So why, despite those statistics, is the tradwife message still resonating with over 10 million people?
The rise of tradwife content didn’t happen in a vacuum. It emerged alongside burnout, rising childcare costs, economic instability, social media algorithms rewarding nostalgia, and a growing dissatisfaction with “girlboss” culture.
True feminism though, is not about telling women whose choice is “right” but about creating a system where women have a CHOICE and the system is designed to protect them regardless of the choice they make.
The book never really examines this. That’s what makes it fall short of being the literary masterpiece I had hoped it would be.
Graphite and Jade 