Burke spoon-feeds the irony to the reader...but she doesn’t need to: The premise is already an ingenious, exquisite, be-careful-what-you-wish-for ... And in Burke’s biting prose, Natalie is an electric antiheroine ... The two timelines collapse and Yesteryear draws to a dizzying conclusion.
Tackling pop culture ideas of trad wives, social media and the curated reality shown on Instagram, while also exploring more serious themes of religious conservatism, the debut is witty, funny and thought-provoking.
Burke captures much of the zeitgeist in Natalie’s increasingly delusional, overall disturbing state of mind in both time periods—and in other characters’ collisions with it. The seductive topic, unreliable narrator, and surprisingly creepy vibes are sure to draw readers in and keep them guessing.
Burke...packs more ideas and themes into Yesteryear than can be fully explored in one novel, and readers are bound to be divided on the effectiveness of the ending. But it’s pretty much impossible not to be bewitched and bewildered by the novel’s complicated main character. Natalie may be unlikable, but in Burke’s bleak outline of the options for modern womanhood, many of her choices are understandable. Yesteryear is an entertaining and unpredictable debut that readers will yearn to discuss.
This deliciously funny, topical, and fiercely intelligent debut also probes deeper questions about authenticity, ambition, kindness, celebrity, consumerism, and what it means to be a woman in America today. It’s also a propulsive page turner, impossible to put down. A remarkable debut—both a book for the moment and one that will endure.
