Caro Claire Burke’s 'Yesteryear' Explores the Dangers of Self-Deception Through a Tradwife Influencer’s Time-Travel Twist

Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear opens with a protagonist designed to provoke immediate disdain: Natalie Heller Mills, a faux-homesteading tradwife influencer whose Instagram persona masks a life of self-deception.

"I was perfect at being alive," Natalie declares early in the novel, establishing herself as an unreliable narrator of her own existence. Her carefully curated online identity—built on nostalgia, tradition, and performative domesticity—collides with a surreal and jarring reality when she wakes up in what appears to be a real 1800s homestead.

The novel’s dual timelines reveal Natalie’s backstory as the more compelling narrative. Raised in a rigidly religious and conservative community, she later married into an ultra-wealthy political family, where she constructed an elaborate fantasy to reconcile her true self with the persona she believed she needed to embody. This duality forms the core of Yesteryear’s exploration of authenticity and self-deception.

In the 1800s setting, Natalie faces the brutal realities of life without modern conveniences: an outhouse, endless hand-washed laundry, and a husband whose temper borders on abuse. The contrast between her Instagram-perfect tradwife aesthetic and the harshness of her new reality raises questions: Is this a dream? A delusion? Or a twisted social experiment?

While the historical storyline intrigues, it is Natalie’s past that elicits greater sympathy. Her journey from a sheltered upbringing to a life of performative perfection reveals the psychological toll of living a lie—both online and offline. Yesteryear transcends its premise as a cautionary tale about influencer culture; it becomes a meditation on the dangers of self-deception and the cost of living inauthentically.