Not About Autism Book Club: We Read The Viral Novel Yesteryear

Julianna Scott and Kelley Jensen launch the Not About Autism Book Club, with their first pick, Carol Clare Burke's viral bestseller Yesteryear. The novel follows a trad wife influencer who wakes up living in 1855, and the hosts dig into what the book gets right and wrong about performative Christianity, the manosphere, trad wife culture, and social media escapism. They debate the unlikable main character, the polarizing ending, and whether the story's twist actually lands. Spoilers included throughout. 

Key Takeaways

• Yesteryear follows a trad wife influencer who wakes up living in 19th century conditions on her ranch
• The hosts discuss the book's central criticism, that Christianity is portrayed as a theatrical villain
• Clementine and the preacher are named as the story's more redeeming, genuinely Christian characters
• The author's writing process, including her rushed first draft and two editors, gets discussed in detail
• The rumor that Anne Hathaway ghostwrote the book is addressed and debunked
• Caleb's arc into the manosphere sparks a conversation about male identity and validation
• The hosts unpack why trad wife content is aspirational fantasy rather than reality
• They discuss the book's divisive twist ending and the lack of redemption for the main character
• Both hosts rate the book differently, weighing societal relevance against the quality of the writing
• The next book club pick, Ann Patchett's Whistler, is announced at the end

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Yesteryear by Carol Clare Burke, the book club's first pick, following a trad wife social media influencer who wakes up living in 1855.
• Diabolical Lies, the podcast hosted by author Carol Clare Burke. 
• Whistler by Ann Patchett, our next book club pick.

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Timestamps

00:00 Launching the Not About Autism book club
01:03 Introducing Yesteryear and its viral buzz
01:36 What Yesteryear is about
02:06 First impressions of the book
03:07 Spoiler warning before the ending talk
03:25 Is Christianity the book's villain
04:46 A social justice warrior as the real villain
05:16 The author's rushed first draft process
06:06 Editors and publishers shaping the book
07:06 Why Kelley reads acknowledgments
07:42 The Anne Hathaway ghostwriter rumor
09:36 Fleshing out Caleb's character for film
10:20 Sympathy for Caleb's stupidity
11:18 Caleb's pull into the manosphere
11:55 Social media silos and trad wife fantasy
12:21 Was Caleb aware of his own role
14:08 The unlikability of Shannon's arc
15:22 The reading is sexy shirt moment
15:53 Real homesteaders versus influencers
16:20 Trad wife ideology meets modern woman
17:23 Ballerina Farms and hidden help
18:29 Why trad wife content is appealing
19:29 Escapism and fantasy in trad wife culture
20:10 Trad wife versus stay at home mom
21:27 Social media as a sewing circle
21:50 No redemption for Natalie
22:08 The author's defense of Natalie
23:24 Why Natalie is hard to like
26:09 Hypocrisy and the manosphere's relevance
27:33 Wishing for a time travel twist
28:17 The new batch of kids reveal
28:37 Questions about Clementine and the warrant
29:46 Debating who is worse, Natalie or Caleb
30:03 Marital rape and the fantasy of control
32:20 Was Natalie drugged the whole time
33:11 The unreliable narrator problem
34:34 Rating the book on Goodreads
35:37 The concept of winning in the story
36:59 Announcing the next book club pick

Creators and Guests

Guest

Julianna Scott

Guest

Kelley Jensen

What is Refrigerator Moms?

Born from 20 years of friendship, during which they navigated the trenches of autism parenting and advocacy, the Refrigerator Moms is Kelley Jensen and Julianna Scott’s way of reaching out to parents waging the same battles they were.  Their purpose with this podcast is to clear the fog, silence the noise, and find a path through neurodivergence for parents that are stuck between bad choices. They tackle parenting topics such as mom guilt, tantrums, pathological demand avoidance, siblings, medication, comorbidities, social media, and much more. 

Julianna Scott 00:00
So you've been listening to this show for a while, and I know what you're expecting. It's probably some deep dive into some autism topic. That would be a good assumption. Mental health, maybe. Yes.
Kelley Jensen 00:13
But today we're gonna do something a little bit different. We've already done an episode not about autism, and in it we talked a little bit about some of the books we've read and not read. And we thought it would be fun to do a book group. That's right. So this is our inaugural Not About Autism book club edition.
Julianna Scott 00:36
So we decided to do a book club. We are gonna do this. We're gonna try and do it every six, eight weeks. We do already have the next book, so that for this first one, we're just gonna talk about the book, but in our next episode, you'll find out. At the end of this episode what our next book's gonna be.
Kelley Jensen 00:54
Oh, the next, at the end of the episode? Yeah, you gotta wait. Oh, okay. So we're gonna have a book club where people are gonna. But for this one, we're talking about what?
Julianna Scott 01:03
Yesteryear. I know the book that everybody's talking about, so. Yes. And I think I read it first. You did.
Kelley Jensen 01:12
And we were talking about it in our, in our episode not about autism. And you wanted me to read it and I read it. And then, wow, did social media blow up about it? This book is everywhere. It's been everywhere.
Julianna Scott 01:22
It is polarizing people. Everybody's got an opinion, everybody's got a TikTok about it. Everybody's got a Instagram canva about it. So if you don't know, Yesteryear is Carol Clare Burke's 2026 debut novel.
Kelley Jensen 01:36
And it follows Natalie Heller Mills, a trad wife social media influencer who wakes up one day in 19th century on her ranch and she has to learn to live without modern society. It's been at least 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and Anne Hathaway bought the rights and she's gonna produce and star in it. So it's definitely gonna be in in our culture for a while. So what were your initial thoughts after reading it? I liked it.
Julianna Scott 02:06
I, I, I liked it very much. I thought that if it lost its way, I think that some of the criticisms of it are warranted. But I think that the fact that it has everybody talking and the fact that it's polarizing makes it by definition great because that's, you know, we're all so jaded and so kind of going through life at zombies, so many things thrown at us that for somebody to really shake us awake and make us start talking about a book, it's fantastic. So it's a great book. Even if the book is about social media.
Kelley Jensen 02:38
A lot of it maybe overdue. Maybe. Maybe the book we didn't know we needed. Right. And we are.
Julianna Scott 02:45
There will be spoilers in this conversation. So if you haven't finished reading it, you know, read that first, then come back. But we are going to talk about the ending because the ending also, there's lots of reaction to the ending. People are very upset, very upset, intrigued by it, whatever. So some of the criticisms are that she doesn't understand Christian conservative women.
Kelley Jensen 03:08
The only the illiberal idea of them. This whole notion of theatrical Christianity. Christianity is the villain, perhaps. And that's valid. The religion aspect was interesting because as I was reading it, I couldn't get a clear sense of what religion it was, what Christian sect.
Julianna Scott 03:25
Well, there's no Christianity in it. No, there's not. It isn't. It's almost like a humiliation fantasy. Yeah.
Kelley Jensen 03:32
Like Christianity is the villain in this, but there is no Christianity because she's a very unchristian person. Right. Well, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that happens. Yes, well, that's, I mean that would be a legitimate criticism. Right, but it's like satire.
Julianna Scott 03:47
Yes. So it's supposed to be that and the villain is supposed to be Christianity. But we had, we. There were some redeeming characters in it, but they were kind of buried in her. Who were the redeeming characters?
Kelley Jensen 03:56
Preacher. Right. The, this, this sister's husband. He, he had a very Christian mentality of forgiveness. Right.
Julianna Scott 04:04
That we're all human and that we all sin. And you know, the mom confessed her sins to him. Right. The sister, I would argue, I mean, you know, Clementine, of course. Yes.
Kelley Jensen 04:15
The ultimate Christian. Right. I would think she did, you know, a selfless act. So there is. But it's lost in the theatrical version of Christianity.
Julianna Scott 04:24
That is a lot of people feel like enough with Christianity as the villain. And maybe that, I mean, you could easily have made a social justice warrior that secretly has a Cayman island account and you know, a stashed away crypto account. The villain in this. I mean, and maybe we should have, maybe that should be her second book. Right.
Kelley Jensen 04:46
Because it is really that, you know, the persona that is. Yeah, that should be the villain in my opinion. But it was, it's a legitimate gripe. Right, for sure. The book is smug.
Julianna Scott 04:56
Again, poorly written and she over explains and spoon feeds irony. Okay, the poorly written part, I do want to talk about that because I. So the author has a podcast called Diabolical Lies. I did listen to the episode, and she has co hosts. I did listen to the episode where they talk about Yesteryear.
Kelley Jensen 05:16
And it was interesting. She talked a lot about, you know, many parts. But the thing that she was saying about the writing is. So she rushed the first draft. So she said the first draft was instinct.
Julianna Scott 05:30
It was just like, don't think about it too hard. Just get to the end. And she said every scene in the first draft was originally about 400 words. And that's. And then.
Kelley Jensen 05:39
So she sent, like, 60 pages to her agent, who immediately said, this is going to sell. And then she went to the UK agent. Foreign rights were. Teams were involved. So everybody was sort of.
Julianna Scott 05:53
The teams were assembling while she was actually writing the book. Wow. And so then there's, like, people. There's an auction for who was gonna get it, what publisher was gonna get it. So she said her agent.
Kelley Jensen 06:06
And then once she does sell it, she has two editors, and they were really workshopping it. And so I think that she had so much input, and I really feel like it shows that it was sort of a book by committee. I feel like it definitely shows that. She said that the ending and the twist was always there. Like, she always had that idea.
Julianna Scott 06:29
So that wasn't changed. But I read some of the criticisms, and I agree that it was too long. And she said if she had her way, it would be like 30% longer. And I'm like, jesus, like, what's gonna. What are you gonna.
Kelley Jensen 06:42
That is one of the. It prattles on a bit. Right. And I would agree the characters function as arguments, not people. Well, that makes sense, because from what you're saying is that there's not a whole lot of room for character development when you have to spoon feed the irony of it all.
Julianna Scott 06:58
I did think. And I thought this too. So I tend to read acknowledgments. Do you read the acknowledgments when you read a book? No, I do not.
Kelley Jensen 07:06
I read the acknowledgment. Of course you do, because you want to get the eight. You're the extra credit girl. It's not just extra credit. First of all, again, I worked in publishing, and I would be in the acknowledgments, albeit they were college textbooks.
Julianna Scott 07:21
So you're in the acknowledgment of a college textbook. Not just one.
Kelley Jensen 07:28
Many. All right, fair. Look at you. But, yes, so I do read the acknowledgments, but you get some good information. All right, but I'm not the only one reading the acknowledgments because there was a whole rumor online about Anne Hathaway's involvement.
Julianna Scott 07:42
Because in the acknowledgments, she acknowledges Anne Hathaway's help. And so that sparked rumors that she was, like. To the point where they were saying that Anne Hathaway was a ghostwriter. She was not. And so the author said that she had read a draft about two years before publication and then competed with other buyers for the film rights.
Kelley Jensen 08:06
And she said that the early conversations with Anne Hathaway were about the theme, not the text. And they talked about broader themes like performance and surveillance and commercialization of religion. Speaking of that, in her own read, that Natalie has a very transactional relationship with her own religion, and it's very fraudulent. So I think that was interesting. But Hathaway said, no, she did not write it.
Julianna Scott 08:28
So. Okay, as somebody that has a nose for the publishing world, how did Anne Hathaway know about the book? Like, were they shopping the outline? Yeah. So what was happening was her agent had these 60 pages, and they were talking about.
Kelley Jensen 08:43
Then it gets shopped around. So, like, the agent around to publishers, Other book publishers. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Julianna Scott 08:50
And then they. Everyone in that world is then looking, looking, looking for content. Call the Refrigerator Moms. We got an idea. We got ideas.
Kelley Jensen 09:00
This episode of the Refrigerator Moms is brought to you by Brain Performance Technologies. Brain Performance Technologies is a specialty mental health clinic that offers Magnetic e Resonance Therapy, or MeRT, for autistic people aged 3 or older. MeRT is a transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol that utilizes an EEG diagnostic to deliver personalized magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain and build neural pathways effective in managing autistic symptoms. But, yeah, so I thought that was a little interesting, but I definitely get the sense this is a debut novelist. So she probably didn't want to mess it up.
Julianna Scott 09:36
She realized that she had something big here. She did. And she said she got. She was offered more money than she ever thought she was ever going to get. Right.
Kelley Jensen 09:43
So, yeah, you're like, okay, how do I make this the most successful thing ever? And tell me what, to tell me how I should do this. I mean, I think in this case, she probably wasn't wrong. Well, one of the things she mentioned was when in her first draft, that Caleb, he was kind of like a shadow figure, and she really didn't have him fleshed out and not gonna be a good movie. So you want the character.
Julianna Scott 10:09
Yeah. I mean, you need a counter. Then she had to really think about who was the husband gonna be. And it should be a counterweight to Natalie. Sympathetic or is he gonna be straight villain in the movie?
Kelley Jensen 10:21
Well, in the book. What do you think of Caleb? I had a lot of sympathy for his stupidity. You know, he's obviously not smart guy. Right.
Julianna Scott 10:30
And he obviously has been held to a standard he could not possibly attain and buckled under the weight of it long before he met Natalie. Yeah, I mean he was. He was ripe to be molded because. There's nothing else to do with him because he couldn't just be himself. So I think if he'd been a kindergarten teacher, he would have been much better off.
Kelley Jensen 10:50
Yes. He would have been fine. And. And she wouldn't allow that or his father wouldn't allow that. And it's a whole lifetime of people not allowing him to just be whatever he was.
Julianna Scott 10:59
Okay, well, that said, do you think his being kind of sucked into the manosphere, do you think that that is how it happens? Yes, absolutely. I think I thought that was an. Interesting look at how somebody could be, you know. Well, I drafted into that movement one.
Kelley Jensen 11:18
Of the things people that hated this book, one of the things it should do again, it should force you to look at how you're spending your time in these social media silos. We call them silos all the time and they are silos. And the manosphere is one. But so is if you are a social justice warrior and you spend all your days on the social justice website or if you love a trad wife story and something aspirational and those are characters and you don't want to know that those people are characters, then you are going to hate this book because it is really throwing in our face that those are. Those people are playing characters.
Julianna Scott 11:56
Yes. I mean what I thought was interesting is so Natalie, she goes to her father in law's rallies and things like that and the support he's getting and who's supporting him. And she just thinks it's all performance. It is, but is it because is Caleb? I mean, I think Caleb is a really especially old Caleb in the 1855 version.
Kelley Jensen 12:21
He's not a good guy, he's horrible. So that's the point I think that she's making. Right. So the aspirational to living a trad wife life in 19 or 1855 and then not acknowledge that women were property, that men could, you know, beat them up at will and I mean, he's playing the role of a husband back in the day.
Julianna Scott 12:46
Is he playing the role or is he, you know, he's aware of what's going on. He is playing the role because she asked him to. She's. She asked him to go back to 1955. Out of what.
Kelley Jensen 12:58
So you don't think he has any agency over what he's doing? Oh no, of course he has agency over it. Of course he should. I mean, he should be in jail too. We don't know at the end of the book if he went to jail or not.
Julianna Scott 13:06
He should have. I mean, he was, I mean, he was definitely culpable. So he's no better a person than her. Right. And I mean, and I don't think that we can just say he's a, you know, been duped.
Kelley Jensen 13:19
Well, it's part of it. He's. He's been duped as part of it. It is part of his origin story at the, at the very least. And so at one point did he just lean into.
Julianna Scott 13:28
Okay, now I can be 1855. Nobody can question me because I'm the man of the house. So I'll just go into the barn and watch football five hours a day and then the other three, I'll order my wife and my kids around because I couldn't really do the work. Yeah. And.
Kelley Jensen 13:44
But either could she. No, I mean, they were both pretenders, right? They were both pretenders and they were both lying for identity. And I think they had a lot in common in that regard. I just think that.
Julianna Scott 13:56
Okay, the thing I didn't like. We gotta talk about Shannon a little bit. The character of Shannon. Yes. So one minute he's ready to go off with Shannon and live her woke life.
Kelley Jensen 14:08
Right. But then in an instant he's all on board with creating this 1855 scenario. Utterly rudderless. Utterly, you know, just going with whatever's gonna make him feel the best. Whatever's gonna make.
Julianna Scott 14:23
Give him that self esteem that he desperately needed. Yeah, I guess I just, I don't respect characters or people who just don't take a stand. Like if you were one thing, I could like Natalie. Like she was singly driven. This one thing.
Kelley Jensen 14:39
But to speak, to be so pliable, just I, you know, I think that and especially to your baser instincts and. To what is going to make you look the best. I mean, isn't that what she's doing? She's playing to the base? She is.
Julianna Scott 14:54
And he is kind of going with the flow. Whatever's gonna get him out of the moment, whatever is gonna create an atmosphere where he's somebody and where he's respected. You know, he's never had any respect. She thinks I'm smart.
Kelley Jensen 15:07
She thinks I'm smart. Right. You know, I mean, that is. That is gonna dupe him more than the manosphere, right? Yeah.
Julianna Scott 15:13
Yeah. I just have to take a pause to remind everybody that you are wearing your Reading is sexy shirt. Oh, that is. It is fantastic. Because reading is sexy.
Kelley Jensen 15:23
And like I said, kudos to this book for getting people reading again. It takes a lot to get people to read anything these days. Okay, well, speaking of taking distractions, let's talk about the social media, the influencer part, and the trad wife. First of all, I have to give a shout out to anybody that is actually doing anybody that's actually baking bread and cleaning their own house and has a garden and homeschools their kids. We all know that there are people out there that, that do that, that are walking the walk.
Julianna Scott 15:53
And they're not on social media. I was going to say they're not the ones they don't have selling products. Yeah, no, they're not selling themselves as a product and they are not aspirational. I thought it was fascinating that when Shannon had her interview with Natalie, she said that all her friends loved her because she was rejecting the tech bro misery where you're going to just, you know, shill for these billionaires, never really see a dime and have no autonomy over your life.
Kelley Jensen 16:20
And so the crossing of ideologies between Christianity and modern day woman I thought was really a great plot twist and very important, and I suspect why some people hated it. Well, and I think this whole. The whole notion of trad wives, I think is kind of interesting. I mean, we know it's all fake, but do we? I mean, think about it.
Julianna Scott 16:42
Well, I mean, the ones we know, like ballerina farms, like the real ones. I'm sorry, we know it's fake. Oh, do people not know it's fake? Do they not know that? Do they're hustling, like, do they not see that an aspirational lifestyle is just that it's not somebody that's actually doing that work?
Kelley Jensen 17:02
Because if you were doing that work. Right, you would have time for nothing else. Well, and when Shannon got to the farm and realized, oh, my God, you got all these people helping you, what did. The fact that she was genuinely surprised was, I think, one of the more valid points in the book. And one thing that we all have to keep an eye out for when we follow these people and.
Julianna Scott 17:23
Or these companies or these brands is that they are selling us something and they're not above lying to us about it. And they. If you're a big enough influencer, you don't even get the. I always talk about how I get kicked out of groups all the time because I will give an honest opinion about something and those opinions are filtered out pretty quickly. And the bigger you are, the faster, the more of a celebrity you are, the more of a following you have, the more you have to filter out.
Kelley Jensen 17:48
Those negative angry women. The voices of the angry women. The voices of the angry women. And what. What criticism stays and what criticism goes because you all have control over that.
Julianna Scott 17:57
Right. As an influencer. So we are. When he says there's a lot of hate out there, is it hate or is it a valid critique? Yeah, good points.
Kelley Jensen 18:08
I mean. Right? Both. So everybody that spending any time on social media and is genuinely shocked that these people are not who they say they are, that these accounts are not who they say they are, then that's where you need to start. But I. I just want to go, like, pull it back a little bit to the whole trad wife idea.
Julianna Scott 18:29
And why. Why is it so appealing? Like, why do you. I mean, because. And I think it is interesting that it.
Kelley Jensen 18:35
It's found. Yeah, you're right. Like, people who are really doing it, they're not on social media, right? And the people who are love these trad wives are on social media. So they're not living.
Julianna Scott 18:46
They're lying. They're lying to us all to sell a product which is a better life. But I mean, I mean, the consumer of it, like, what is the consumer getting out of it? Well, I think the fantasy, right, the inspiration porn, that you are not going to be in a rat race, that you're not working for somebody else and putting money in their pocket, that it is you controlling your destiny and you doing things that everybody loves a beautiful loaf of bread, everybody loves the smell of fresh sourdough coming out of the oven. That you could have that every day.
Kelley Jensen 19:18
If only I had time. If only I had this. Do people get over that during COVID Apparently not. Apparently it's escapism. It's a little bit of fantasy.
Julianna Scott 19:29
It is definitely escapism and fantasy. Because for one thing, if you think about it, this whole fantasy of the west and the author was talking about that on her podcast too, about how the reality behind 1855 and that time, those are not days we should be fantasizing about. No, no, absolutely not. They're really not. I know.
Kelley Jensen 19:56
Absolutely not. The Little House on the Prairie fantasy, I mean, that's a hard life. Well, and the difference between what a trad wife is and what a stay at home mom is. Right. You are not a trad wife if you're a stay at home mom.
Julianna Scott 20:10
You are a very different breed. And you're not that. You're not without a, with a, with a laundry list of things to do, but they're much different things to do than a tradwife had to do. Yeah.
Kelley Jensen 20:21
So, you know, it comes back to what are you comparing yourself to? And who do you want to be? Who do you aspire to be? Right. And you aspire to be something that nobody really is, that doesn't exist.
Julianna Scott 20:31
And so. And that's the absurdity about all of this, right. Is because you're aspiring to be somebody who's basically off the grid. Right. But you're on the grid while you're on the grid while you're doing it.
Kelley Jensen 20:41
I mean, that's the, that's the true absurdity of all of it. A good conversation, a good audit of your social media accounts, a good look at how you're spending your time and honest conversation about what you're getting at out of it. That you just love the fantasy of it. You love reading the comments. You know, some people don't wipe their comments because they do want to see, they do want to bring out the claws and people.
Julianna Scott 21:06
And you know, as long as you're honest about that, that's what you're. Why you're doing it then. But we have a tendency to lie to ourselves. We all are guilty of lying to ourselves on our social media. Silo helps us lie.
Kelley Jensen 21:16
I mean, you know, social media is just really a series of sewing circles. Right. And everybody's doing their stitching and bitching. But it's on steroids, right? Yeah.
Julianna Scott 21:27
And be careful because we've always been a little bit judgmental and mean spirited, but you can do it with real teeth from technology's point of view. Right. Because you're hiding. But one of the universal comments about this book was the unlikability of Natalie and that she doesn't change. There's no lesson learned, no redemption.
Kelley Jensen 21:50
No, no redemption story. But this was interesting because I was as I was listening to the author talk about. And I get it, authors love their characters. But she says, and she says, I love Natalie. She says, I think she behaves in myriad horrible ways.
Julianna Scott 22:08
She's bigoted, she's racist, she's close minded. She's a very negligent mother. But she's also deeply ambitious and funny and she constantly has her claws out and is trying to get out of a back corner that she's found herself in often of her own accord. And she's just such a pleasure to be around. For me as a writer, I will say the things I admire in her are things that I want to cultivate in myself.
Kelley Jensen 22:26
She exhibits a lot of masculine traits, traits we code as masculine. She's selfish, she's ambitious and she has this specific moral framework where she thinks that she should be able to change the world, but there are only a few avenues for her to do so. And she admires her naked hunger. So very modern lady. I mean, I get liking your character.
Julianna Scott 22:46
I mean, did you like her? No, no, not at all. And I think that's what I said when we were talking about it. I said she's a very unlikable protagonist. And I think that that's okay to read a book where there that she's unlikable.
Kelley Jensen 22:59
But I thought it was really interesting that the author really went to bat for her and for things that I don't admire Natalie in any way. I mean, do you admire her in some ways? I mean there were some comments out there that some people liked her ambition. No, I did not like her. No, I think you're not supposed to like her.
Julianna Scott 23:24
I think it's fine for the author to like her because I mean, look at all she's doing for the author. She's delivering a story. She's a very, very unique character. Right. So I liked that she goes hard in the paint, you know, that she doesn't.
Kelley Jensen 23:36
There is no redemption that she is going to double down, triple down. She is going to go back to 1955 or 1855 before she's going to be wrong about her choice. Right. She is not facing her choice. So how do you like a person like that that is just so far removed from the ability to.
Julianna Scott 23:52
I got it wrong. So. No, you. I don't. I don't like her.
Kelley Jensen 23:55
But also I like her as a mirror to how we all are allergic to saying we made a choice that did not serve us. Are we all allergic to that? I don't know. I think many of us are. I think we all can be.
Julianna Scott 24:12
I think that's the human part of us, right. That just doesn't want to admit we got it wrong. It's a tough pill to swallow for all of us, isn't it? I don't know, I mean, she made some big mistakes.
Kelley Jensen 24:23
One of my favorite is when she gets caught leaving her child in the car. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. Right.
Julianna Scott 24:30
And something that I never would have dreamed to do, but I think mothers of all persuasions could identify with a temptation to do that because she's just gonna run in and run out. Right. Well, I mean, things have changed. I don't know about you, but I mean, my sister and I were left in the car.
Kelley Jensen 24:52
Back in the day. Right? Back in the day. Back in the day. It was a big.
Julianna Scott 24:55
Okay. It was a thing. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I mean, how old was her kid that she left in the car?
Kelley Jensen 25:00
Four. Oh, yeah. That's pretty young. Yeah. I don't think I was four.
Julianna Scott 25:05
Being left in the car. It was a good one. It was a good one. So, no, no, I don't like Natalie. I don't think we're supposed to like Natalie.
Kelley Jensen 25:11
But I liked that about it. I liked that nobody was coming to save her and redeem her. And I think it's an important character in terms of self reflection and looking at your own. Yeah. Where your line is and where your influences come from and what your brand of faith and religion is.
Julianna Scott 25:30
Because that's the thing is she is so far away from teachings of Christianity, but she is hanging her hat on Christianity. How far do we all deviate and what makes us pious? I thought that was fascinating. She's a fascinating person or character to ask those, you to ask those questions of yourself. Are you taking care of your brain?
Kelley Jensen 25:49
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Julianna Scott 26:09
I think what appealed to me about the story before I read it and as I was reading it too, is that I did like the conversations around the hypocrisy of her lifestyle, of the social media influencer world, and then getting that kind of behind the scenes influence of the manosphere and things that are really relevant in the culture now. And that's why I like reading books that have this, that are really pop up and really cause this stir because it's obviously tickling something in everyone. There's something there that something's gonna appeal to. I didn't see it as something.
Kelley Jensen 27:01
I do like books that I can relate to. The characters. I didn't relate to anybody in here. I didn't see myself in any of these characters. I mean, maybe you have something to tell me later.
Julianna Scott 27:12
I did not, I did not see myself in a lot of these characters. So I didn't see that. I mean, I thought they were more caricatures and representations of characters as a function of an argument. I totally.
Kelley Jensen 27:24
How could you believe. I totally believe that. And I am with the group that was un. I was not satisfied with the ending that. The big twist.
Julianna Scott 27:34
And again, spoilers. We're going to talk about the big twist. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it was a time travel book. Time. Yeah.
Kelley Jensen 27:44
I mean.
Julianna Scott 27:47
I was kind of hoping for that when I first started. I thought that would have been more interesting to see how somebody actually. Did you figure it out? Did you know, I mean, once she finds the little nub of the microphone, you're like, okay, you know, there's no time travel. But I didn't figure out.
Kelley Jensen 28:03
Exactly. I certainly didn't figure out that they'd constructed this to dodge the fallout and. That Mary was who she's pregnant with. I didn't figure out this new batch of kids thing. That was pretty ingenious.
Julianna Scott 28:17
Yeah. I mean, I thought that was interesting. So sad. So sad. So sad.
Kelley Jensen 28:25
And Clementine is the redeeming character that we're all the redemption. There's definitely lots of questions. So Clementine pulls up with a warrant. I'm like, there's no cps. There were no sheriffs.
Julianna Scott 28:37
There was no anything. A prominent family, you know, that could dodge it. You know, the, the his family was probably grateful that he was at. I mean, he was a thorn in their side their whole lives. Right.
Kelley Jensen 28:48
So he was taken care of. Quiet. It's a shame what happened to the children. I mean, of course, you know, but it's so hard to believe that somebody would just want to lock the door and throw away the key for people that are so hard to deal with. I mean, I, again, America, in our.
Julianna Scott 29:06
Society, I think people would ferret them out. Yeah. You would hope. But there are, every once in a while, there is a story about somebody, you know, stashing 14 kids in a house, you know, and, and so, yeah, it's not, it's not out of the realm of possibilities that something like that could happen. And that circle.
Kelley Jensen 29:22
Who knew? I mean, I guess his family, everyone knew where they were. Yeah. So, you know, I, I, I don't know. They're not redeemed.
Julianna Scott 29:30
They're not good people, though. No. So, you know. No. And who do you.
Kelley Jensen 29:36
Who do you think is worse? Who do you think is worse? Natalie or Caleb at the end? Or do you think they're. We don't know what happened to Caleb, so that's.
Julianna Scott 29:46
That bothers me. Yeah. I don't have a problem with a twist. I don't have a problem with the fact that she's in jail, because that's the only way to redeem herself is just to go to jail for what you've done. But what happened to him.
Kelley Jensen 29:57
I know, and I hate that because. He's just as much. He's culpable. Right. We know that he's abused her.
Julianna Scott 30:04
I would say there's some marital rape there. That's a fascinating part. There's marital rape, and when she's being raped, she's enjoying herself for the first time in her. After six kids, she's not enjoying herself. Once I did not like any of that.
Kelley Jensen 30:19
That was just a total rape fantasy. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. I didn't like any of that part. Yeah. Because that's what she really thought a man should be.
Julianna Scott 30:30
Right. So he was playing the fantasy of the man's in charge. You just do what the man says. You don't have to think. That's why I think he is a true villain.
Kelley Jensen 30:39
Because what. He knew what he was doing. She created that. She's the one. I mean.
Julianna Scott 30:43
No, you've got to take responsibility. Well, he. He is his own villain. Right. But she's every bit as much of a villain, too, because she cornered him into a role.
Kelley Jensen 30:51
She cornered him into the villain role because that's what she wanted. Right. And he didn't know what else to do. She wanted the farm, you know, she. I mean, like that.
Julianna Scott 30:57
She wanted all of that. And when he. He wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Would have probably been the best kindergarten teacher. Their lives would probably be totally different if he had been a kindergarten teacher.
Kelley Jensen 31:07
Agreed. Agreed. But that doesn't confuse you. At what point do you go from yes, being just doing what you're told to it being your. I mean, he is a grown man with a brain.
Julianna Scott 31:21
Is he, though? I mean, he's never made a decision a day in his life. They should have never gotten married. You know, they're on and on and on and on, but all under the guise of Christianity and piousness and a Christianity that doesn't. People are not that black and white, and that is a Christian person.
Kelley Jensen 31:40
That is no reflection on how Christians live their lives. It's interesting because, like, I understand the Christian argument and the religion aspect of. But I didn't think that was like the biggest part for me that was driving her. I felt like her religion was her excuse.
Julianna Scott 31:58
It was an excuse, but I don't think she felt any piety, anything like that. I think she goes through these whole again, I think that was very performative. I don't think she really had any real belief system. Well, when she was back in 1855, she does have paragraphs where she's describing seeing the light of God. Don't you think she's also drugged a hundred percent?
Kelley Jensen 32:20
Yeah, of course, the thing is, which. Again, all of that was absurd. So how much of that life was she drugged and how much was she not drugged? I mean, probably a lot. She was probably drugged a lot and probably seeing God when she was most high.
Julianna Scott 32:36
But it's not the only time when we can't rely on what she's saying. So she's very, very unreliable. We don't know if she's talking out loud. We don't know if she's talking into an inner monologue. We don't know if what she says happened has really happened.
Kelley Jensen 32:50
Well, and even going back before they go back to 1855, the whole. What happened with Shannon. And that was interesting because the author addressed that and she thinks, she says that it wasn't motivated by a sexual desire or she wasn't like coming on to Shannon. That's what the author thinks. That's what the author says.
Julianna Scott 33:11
But it was such a heavy handed. Such a heavy handed humiliation fantasy on Christianity that that would be the thing that would cut her off from his family. I mean that. And the thing is, it's like it was purposefully vague and we'll never kind of know what really happened. And it's like Shannon believes one thing, Natalie believes another thing.
Kelley Jensen 33:32
And you never know back to when. She's in college and Rena comes home drunk with the boyfriend and has sex with the boyfriend and then his leather trip later telling her friend she was assaulted. And she says she wasn't assaulted. She was a willing participant. We don't know if that's true.
Julianna Scott 33:50
No, we have no idea. Right. No, that's purposely vague. So you just don't know what she. What lies she tells her.
Kelley Jensen 33:55
You know, it all starts in your mind. So. And that concept that it all starts in your mind and things you tell yourself and you fake it till you make it and all of these things, there's a hair of that in all of us. It is. You have to have a very firm system of faith, system of friends that are honest with you.
Julianna Scott 34:12
And checking yourself in regular intervals is something that. It gets harder and harder for all of us to do in a world where we are increasingly in a silo that tells us what we want. We want this, this, and then this is what it is. And this is your reality. We make our reality based on how we choose to.
Kelley Jensen 34:27
Who we choose to interact with. And, you know, like I said, the sewing circle is supposed to be small. It's not supposed to be big, but, you know. Yeah. Okay, so on.
Julianna Scott 34:34
Do you rate books on Goodreads? Are you. No. Okay, so out of one to five, what would you rate Yesteryear? Of a five.
Kelley Jensen 34:43
Really? Only because anything that draws this kind of conversation is an automatic 5. To me. A book that everybody's reading and everybody's talking about, in my opinion, is a five. Even if I hate the book, even if I don't get it, even if.
Julianna Scott 34:59
I. Yeah, no, it doesn't mean you love it. It's. Yes. So everyone has it. That's why the system, the rating system is very flawed.
Kelley Jensen 35:06
I would give it a three. I think I gave it a three because to me, it's like, I liked it. I would recommend it to some people, but I don't regret reading it. But I didn't love it. I mean, if you think about the books, I would give a five.
Julianna Scott 35:25
I certainly wouldn't set it next to those, but I'm a very hard grader. Oh, God. I know. What about this concept that she won? The concept of winning.
Kelley Jensen 35:37
And I thought this was a really. A fascinating mirror for us all, too. You know, she kept relating that, let's face it, I won. Like, I won. We lost.
Julianna Scott 35:45
Right. Who. What did she. What is it she said she thinks? Well, I don't think she knows anymore.
Kelley Jensen 35:50
Right. Well, winning. Because if. If she's calculating other people's failures to vindicate her own choices, then. Then she's winning.
Julianna Scott 36:00
But, I mean, that's something that I. I'm always like, don't compare. Don't compete. Right. But the second that you do that, first of all, that is a very unchristian thing to do. Right.
Kelley Jensen 36:09
So I thought that was. And I thought that was something that should be relatable to us all. We all say, assign random win losses to things that we shouldn't. Right. Yeah, I thought that was really, really good.
Julianna Scott 36:20
So I guess I'd give it a five. No, a five for societal relevance. Relevance that we should all pay attention to these things. Yeah. And that's why I recommended it to you.
Kelley Jensen 36:34
I'm just like, yeah, the societal relevance. For writing itself a three. Right. Needs improvement. I mean, the criticisms of it are valid.
Julianna Scott 36:44
Yeah. Right. So if. If you hated it, you've got a valid reason to hate it. If you loved it, you've got a valid reason to love it.
Kelley Jensen 36:49
It's one of those kind of books, right? Yeah, I know. I. I didn't think it was too long, though. I mean, it's. It's a quick read.
Julianna Scott 36:55
Oh, it's a quick read. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So what did you think of Yesteryear?
Kelley Jensen 36:59
Tell us. Write it in a. In the comments. We don't shut off comments. No, we try not to.
Julianna Scott 37:07
Unless they're, you know, really X rated or, you know, something.
Kelley Jensen 37:15
We're not going to turn off your comment. Love it or hate it. Tell us what you thought about it and tell everybody what we're going to do next. So our next one we are going to be reading is Whistler, another one on the bestseller list. So I know we're Ann Patchett fans.
Julianna Scott 37:30
I've been looking forward to reading this. So come and join the conversation. We will put out more details about that soon. Yes, and this is kind of a different Ann Patchett, one of the great American writers. Right.
Kelley Jensen 37:39
That we have some good classics that we have differing opinions on, which what our favorite Ann Patchett book is. Although we both love the Dutch house that is universally loved. So. All right, thanks for listening. Bye.
Kelley Jensen 37:52
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Kelley Jensen 38:10
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Kelley Jensen 38:38
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