22/07/2026
Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke was such an amazing read. The book was offensive and direct and kept my attention the whole time. Definitely a six-star read for me. Below I’d like to go a little more in depth.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The goal of an influencer is not to be loveable and it is not to be unbearable. The goal is to be both at once, in other words, addicting.”
I think this quote perfectly captures the essence of this book. She created a character, Natalie Heller Mills, who is terrible, unlikeable, and disgusting, yet I was engaged and locked in to what came next.
I’d describe this book as an onion. As you peel it, you reveal its layers, and the smell stings your eyes, getting teary, but you keep going because you need to get to the center. At the center of this book I found a character who ultimately I felt bad for. A lie told by her mother snowballed into this poisonous ideology that then infected the people they touched. Who would Natalie be had her mother been truthful? What was real and what was Influencer Natalie warping into truth? These are the questions I kept asking myself.
Starting as a content creator, you see her journey into becoming an influencer is rooted in hatred, and ultimately that’s what led to her demise. Religion played a big role in her character development.
“When I was a girl I thought of the Lord the way other girls in my class thought of crushes...”
This was what really disturbed me because today religion has been so weaponized.
This book is not for everyone, and I’ve read mixed reviews about it, but personally I found it engaging and worth reading.
