Yesteryear

But she wasn't used to that if she had been living in the "past" for 15 years. You'd be terrible at things at first and then you'd get used to it. She must have made bread the "old way" for much longer than she'd made it with modern conveniences, so her muscle memory ought to have been there.

You might have moments of shock at things like the state laundry left your hands in. I don't know, maybe it was an effect of the medication or something but it didn't make sense once you knew that information.

It does almost sound like the bulk of the story was written before the author knew why Natalie was in the past.

I assumed that the bread being awful was due to Natalie being used to cooking in a modern temperature-controlled oven, not a wood fired stove woth more variable temperature. Plus she was taking those ‘tonics’ which seemed to be used to sedate/ drug her, so couldn't do things properly.

See I thought Caleb was under pressure to marry the right sort of girl. Religious and clever.

I could not get a handle on Natalie. Who was she? What made her like that? Was she ND? Or just affected by being raised in a cult-like religion? She was obviously unlikeable, so how did she manage to attract Caleb who, presumably, would have his pick of barbies given he's rich and stupid.

If they are making a film out of it I would love to see the later chapters totally from the perspective of her daughter, Clementine, who is the only likeable character in the book.

I completely agree with this point, about the bread. I feel like the author had a few you ideas of where the story would end; a reality tv show, something like the Truman show, and then the ending it did have.

I read it as it was billed as the next biggest thing, but I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like the characters. It was reparative. I’ve told everyone to give it a swerve.

I did wonder why she didn’t see planes going over. She did mention “chem trails” at one point (which did kind of give away the twist)

It was ok. For me the flaws were around the first experiences in the “olden days” like the leg injury and how / who deals with it. It was just too extreme for me to believe. A bit like Stephen kings misery.
and why was her bread turning out so awful, was someone sabotaging it?

I have just read this for book club and defo need to discuss it but no idea where to even start!

It was a very different experience to other books I've read. I didn't especially like any of the characters, but the character of Natalie felt believable even though she was a strange caricature and seemed almost like an exaggerated version of the truth of someone like this. None of the other characters really made much sense to me at all.

OTOH I couldn't stop reading it and kept wanting to go back and find out more. I don't usually get that unless I really get into a character. I think it was the way that Natalie did seem real to me. I was really intrigued by her split kind of self between "online Natalie" and the real her. That was actually a bit uncomfortable because I recognised aspects of it in myself. I hope I'm nothing like her IRL but maybe there are bits of it which ring true? That was quite horrifying and perhaps is what kept me glued to it.

The twist didn't make a lot of sense. I kept thinking she was experiencing some kind of psychosis and actually she was living in her actual, modern day house with her real husband and children but she was hallucinating the rest. The missing 15 years didn't make sense - she woke up one day surprised, confused and terrified to be there, with no knowledge of how to live during that time period, but during the same timeline she had memories of Maeve's birth - was this supposed to be indicative of her skewed mental state ie sometimes she was blocking out the decision she'd made and sometimes she wasn't?

And I don't really understand the rationale of why they decided to do that as a response to the scandal either. I get that it was meant to be a sort of punishment, but that felt like a really odd choice almost like it was just like "Lol, religious people are crazy and illogical!"

But I did enjoy the experience of the book. I don't mind narratives which switch back and forth using flashback like this but I probably would read it through again to get more of a sense of what order everything happened in.

I downloaded it on audible to garden with the other day.

Its pretty crap so far. I'm just in the past.

I didn’t see Caleb and Natalie as totally unlikable. I kind of thought of them as victims of their upbringing.

I finally finished it last night, took me about a month to read it as I found it quite a slog.

I was very underwhelmed and once again annoyed at myself for falling for the hype, I really must stop doing that 😆! Luckily I managed to get the ebook via my library so at least it didn't cost me anything.

It was good to read something where pretty much every character wasn't likeable as that is quite unusual, although I did like her school friend nemesis and hoped she went on to be super happy and successful.

The “twist” was fairly obvious, but I still enjoyed the story. I just think the last third was rushed.

I agree. Boring

I’ve no idea Elle! Like you I feel like it’s fairly obvious where she stands. The protagonist is still one of my favourites from the books I’ve read this year even if everyone hates her 😆

You seriously didn't see the 'twist' ? It was quite obvious as book went on.

I read this after a friend recommended it. I really enjoyed it and, despite several theories, didn't work out the twist at the end. Then I watched the Ruby Franke documentary and Yesteryear seemed less a work of fiction! If you were familiar with Franke's story first then Yesteryear would be less shocking. I agree the characters were deliberately unlikeable. I think when Clementine first made her escape she just wanted to keep her head down and be left alone. Her grandfather had huge resources and wealth and could have made life very difficult.

@FrothyCothy Very interesting! How do you think readers expect the author to explore the topics more deeply?

I feel like in Yesteryear the author takes a pretty clear position, it is just not stated outright. The whole book sneers at influencer culture, the manosphere, ‘traditional American family values’ theatre, ‘home education’, how people isolated from society lose their minds a bit etc.

Likewise I wouldn’t want views or opinions spoon fed to me. I’d like some room to make up my own mind

I also find it interesting when people criticise books/ films stating that ‘the characters were morally corrupt/ did something that wasn’t right’. Real humans in real life are extremely flawed and controversial, so if the character doesn’t have any controversial thoughts or do something ‘wrong’, it disappoints me.

I guess the conclusion here is that different people like different kinds of books 🙃

I’m with you @ElleintheWoods. I disliked every character in Wuthering Heights but it doesn’t make it a lesser work of literature.

i’ve also seen criticism online of Yesteryear that the author doesn’t “take a position” or “explore topics more deeply”. I felt like that was the point! It’s full of self-serving characters like we are surrounded by self-serving people who don’t believe in any of the things they say.

I hear this a lot in comments about books/ films.

Do people generally find it important to like someone/ have someone they’re cheering for? I extremely rarely like anyone in a story, I genuinely feel like a neutral outsider observer. But that doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story.

E.g. The Gentlemen, I definitely do not like anyone of the characters, but they sometimes me laugh or shock me, and it’s one of my favourite shows. Or something like Brassic. Or Where the Crawdads Sing. Many many examples where I love the story but characters unlikeable/ strange.

Hence I enjoyed this book, because none of the characters had many redeeming features and it made me more curious about them, I found them realistic and reflective of society

I really enjoyed the book but the ending felt very rushed, like a few chapters were missing.

I was so disappointed. Didn’t like anyone really. It had the potential to be great but I was just disappointed

I just finished this after nearly giving up multiple times. I’m glad that I kept reading.

There were loads of flaws, but the concept was interesting and thought provoking.

I found the idea of life being a "pretence" for so many people interesting. So many of us going around pretending to be the characters we think we are, or other people think we are. Social media has definitely amplified this, particularly for younger people.

It is one thing to pull on your professional persona to go to work, but another altogether to start living in some kind of real life Truman Show, which it seems to me that influencers are in danger of doing. I remember Zoella when DD was a teenager and being fairly horrified by the character that she was creating both for herself and young girls to aspire to.

Nathalie was clearly stuggling with some fairly hefty demons, but again it was interesting that it was easy to see how women are raised to hate other women and their choices.

The book didn't delve to deeply into Doug, the Manosphere but I'm guessing this was a nod to the MAGA movement and all the fucking batshit conspiracy theories spun. Not to mention the weird harking backwards that the far right seem to encourage - some kind of weird fantasy, sunlight uplands that only exist in the spin of propaganda.

i thought it was a great premise but extremely badly written.

For those that liked (or at least didn’t hate) this I’m currently reading The Mad Wife, I haven’t finished yet but the equally fairly unlikeable and unreliable narrator reminds me of Yesteryear.