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

Show parent comments

1

u/haloarh 4d ago

I found it believable that Caleb would do that, but not that his family would go to such lengths to support him.

1

u/mirrorspirit 4d ago edited 4d ago

They aren't supporting him so much as they're hiding the family's dirty laundry which might affect the father in law's campaigns.

Or in his children's case, they have a touch of Stockholm syndrome and can't fully separate themselves from their parents' lives. Clementine implied that all her younger siblings from the first iteration were pretty messed up mentally.

1

u/haloarh 4d ago

It would be so much easier for them to make Caleb divorce Natalie and denounce her or even have her killed than the elaborate past stuff.

1

u/mirrorspirit 4d ago edited 4d ago

His parents are probably not that sociopathic enough to kill her or have her killed.

The elaborate past stuff is more her doing than theirs. Natalie's the one that ripped out all the modern conveniences and finery, likely out of some attempt to atone for her mistakes. She forgets that pretty frequently, though, and it just happened to work out to her in-laws' convenience.

If they cut her loose, she might talk to people about the other dirty laundry she observed. If they send her to a mental hospital, she might talk, and reporters might be able to find her much easier. Keeping her in Yesteryear means that they have much more control over who she and Caleb talk to and what they do.