Yesteryear

[Passwordsaremynemesis]

Is anyone reading Yesteryear? I have just finished and need to talk about it. I loved it and did not see the ‘twist’ coming at all!

I think some of the dislike is because the main character is unlikeable, and does not get a redemption arc- it doesn’t follow the theory of equilibrium in the typical ‘happy ending’ way.

I enjoyed it and did not see the twist coming.

I loved it. Didn't see the twist coming and was happy to avoid the supernatural. I thought it was really pertinent to the USA today and other places to an extent.

I found it a little longwinded and was glad to get to the end.

Quite liked the “twist” but it was a slog to get there. Interesting characters and I think credit to the author that they remained unlikeable throughout.

I already knew about the twist, so wasn’t surprised, but I have a question about the ending. We’re told that Clementine escapes with the children when she’s 16, and ends up with Abigail (Natalie’s mother). Did she leave Mary behind as she was too young? Plus, how did Caleb get the older boys back to live as their ‘neighbours’ and provide the food etc if they’d left with Clementine?

I have mixed feelings about the book in general - it’s a really interesting idea, and the way that Natalie was an unreliable and unlikeable character was unusual, but it didn’t really work for me.

I think Natalie was possibly pregnant with Mary when the others left. She hadn’t been born yet I don’t think. And I read it to mean that the older boys went back of their own accord. Cushty life I guess, watching TV in their cabin in the woods all day.

Yeah I found it long winded too, but I think also, cleverly, we were supposed to. Living in that way was drab and boring and monotonous and tedious. The so called simple life… with a bit of grass is greener…

I’ve just finished it. Found it riveting from end to end, I read the vast majority (I.e. after the first 20 pages) this evening. Wow!

I loved it and read it quickly because I was so keen to find out how it was going to resolve itself. None of the adult characters were likeable though which I think puts a lot of people off.

It’s a very uncomfortable narrative on a certain sector of online influencers too

Agree. The 'Mormon Momfluencer' does seem to be an pretty viable career choice in Utah and suchlike.

I read Natalie as someone who had a poor relationship with the truth and sense of self from the get-go, found what she thought was a way to 'win' at life and when that crumbled, she had a complete mental breakdown. I don't think she was ' inherently cruel' or focussed in her abuse in a Ruby Franke way, I think she was desperately trying to self-preserve to the point of selfishness and the selfishness and desperation combined with the mental health crisis manifested itself in neglect/abuse/cruelty.

The ONLY thing that jarred for me were the dated height notches on the door. She had specifically assigned years to the heights of the children living in the 'past' whereas I would imagine in reality, the concept of time would be more vaguely rooted in the past rather than linear and specific.

Still loved it

I found the dates so jarring too, but because it was obvious she had fallen into some form of religion psychosis where she genuinely believed she was in the 1800s. Caleb let it happen because he could escape.

I felt the twist was only a twist because it was unbelievable. I just didn’t buy the idea that it would be possible to be an influencer on that scale, face a storm of PR and legal challenges with a FIL that domineering and controlling, with the money and power to buy people off could just cut the world out for 10 years with no one coming to sort it out.

Doug wouldn’t have covered up that level of batshit and as soon as Clementine escaped at 16 she’d have brought the authorities down on them straight away, with help from her gran and aunt.

the idea that for 10 plus years Doug’s money kept protecting them to live like that’s just daft.

doug wouldn’t have had her sectioned to clean up the mess and kept Caleb and the kids somewhere normal but out of the way.

as well as how they survived the several years when the ‘neighbours’ / sons were still too young to help preserve their insanity.

it was just silly and unbelievable to me.

It was alright but not groundbreaking. Can’t say I was hooked, but finished it because that’s what you do

I thought the twist was very clearly foreshadowed. I’d really like to talk about the clues, but I can’t seem to do a spoiler mask from my phone.

I’ll just say that Maeve’s fever was the clincher.

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.

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

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

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

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

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’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.

@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 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.

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