'Books like this get people debating': Why Yesteryear, 2026's buzziest book, is dividing readers

Caro Claire Burke's debut novel Yesteryear is the book of the season – and quite likely the year, too. Here's why this satirical novel about tradwives and womanhood in the US has everybody talking.

Take a quick scan of the hotel pool, beach or airplane this summer and there's a good chance you'll see someone immersed in the pages of Yesteryear.

Caro Claire Burke's debut novel was published in April to great fanfare. It is the story of a successful "tradwife" influencer who finds herself transported back to the 1800s. Buzz about the book has only snowballed from there. It's spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and topped the Sunday Times hardback fiction chart in the UK. 

It's not just that people are buying it in droves – they're also talking about it en masse. On Bookstagram and BookTok, the literary nooks of social media, Yesteryear takes are ubiquitous. In June the novel topped the new BookTok chart, meaning it was the most talked-about title on the platform. In group chats and bookclubs, readers are fiercely debating its merit.

Yesteryear's protagonist is Natalie Heller Mills, a 32-year-old married mother of five (soon to be six) who documents her family's apparently idyllic life on their 500-acre Idaho farm to millions of social media followers. Her character mirrors the real-life internet subculture of women who promote and imitate traditional gender roles, where men are the breadwinners and women their subordinates, prioritising raising children and housekeeping. 

Natalie bakes sourdough, home-schools her children, drinks milk fresh from her cow, collects eggs from her chickens ("the ladies") each morning – all with a gleaming smile on her face. At least, for as long as the camera is rolling. Natalie's perfect life is a carefully constructed façade, but it's a compelling and lucrative one.

Then, one day, she wakes up and finds herself living slap-bang in the past that she has been romanticising – 1855 to be exact. When cosplay becomes reality, the "good old days" suddenly don't seem so rosy after all. The book flips between the present and a nightmarish version of the past, with how and why Natalie ended up in the 1800s only revealed at the end.

A runaway hit with real-world parallels

Why has the book proved so popular? Certainly, the publishers invested in an intense marketing blitz. And the enthusiasm of Anne Hathaway – who saw an early draft, bought the rights and will produce and star in the film – has helped put eyes on it. But the real pull of Yesteryear is that simple but delicious "what if"' premise: what if a woman who imitates a bygone way of life was forced to live the reality of that fantasy? And what if, we, the reader, got a ringside seat to her downfall?

"The idea of sending an influencer back into the past to live as a real-life pioneer woman? I was jealous," says Leigh Stein, author of several novels satirising internet culture, including Self Care and If You're Seeing This It's Meant For You. "I was like, 'why didn't I think of that?' It's such a........

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