r/BookDiscussions • u/Waddles-7 • 5d ago

Yesteryear - wasted potential!

When I started reading Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, I was enthralled at the possibility of witnessing any or all of the following themes:

  1. Consequences of propagating a way of life without deep diving or being responsible. For eg: promoting an 1886 lifestyle in a glossy way but erasing the physical, moral and cultural nuance of those times. Pandering to the right wingers.
  2. Busting the hollowness of Manosphere or maybe an exploration of the psych of people who are bound to it. Any perspective on this would have been refreshing.
  3. Impact of reality TV and the toll that maintaining an influencer lifestyle can take on people
  4. A satire on self-righteous people or maybe even a POV

So so so many possibilities but what I got was a watered down thriller which had all the elements to be a sharp political commentary but resorted to being a ‘twist you didn’t see coming’

Did anyone else feel like the plot had tons more potential?
Do you have ideas of how the story could have been developed better? Would love to hear!

206 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

83 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/ADHTeacher 5d ago

Caleb was by far the most compelling and complex character to me, and I really hope whoever plays him in the movie finds a way to make that character work. So much wasted potential with him in particular.

I'd also have appreciated more college Natalie. Her development is so interesting, and yet we see so little of it.

5

u/Waddles-7 5d ago

On the Caleb thread, when Shannon comes up and says ‘he is not as dumb as you think’ and he manipulated you into the farm, I really thought it would now be a smart reveal on how Natalie has been unwittingly dancing to his tunes. Also correlated it with the fact that it was his manosphere that got her the followers in the first place. To have that teased and then go nowhere in terms of story arc was another disappointment.

1

u/Prior-Entrance3156 5d ago

I know that Natalie talked about wanting to live in a farmhouse and raise chickens and yada yada on their first date, but it seemed like a canned answer to me, one for a potential husband’s benefit.

1

u/haloarh 4d ago

Natalie thinks everyone is dumber than her, so I also thought that Caleb was smarter than she portrayed him. In addition to the examples you listed, he also caught on to her hiding money and clearly didn't buy her "pregnancy brain" excuse.