Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke is the latest Good Morning America book club pick.
Burke’s satirical novel, published Tuesday by Knopf, follows Natalie Heller Mills, a “tradwife” influencer with six children who spends her days on an Idaho farm tending chickens, churning butter, and baking. One day, she wakes up to discover that she has been transported to 1855, without the help of the nannies and assistants who have helped sell her phony online image. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “a propulsive page turner, impossible to put down” and “a remarkable debut—both a book for the moment and one that will endure.”
In an interview with Kirkus, Burke discussed the origin of the novel, saying, “In winter 2024, when the obsession with tradwives hit the zeitgeist, I’d been writing for 10 years and felt burnt out, so I decided to take some time off to chill. I started engaging in the conversation on TikTok about tradwives, approaching it through the lens of feminism and media literacy. One morning, I woke up with the word yesteryear in my head. I emailed my agent and said, ‘I have this idea about a woman who wakes up in an alternate time period.’ It came quickly after that.”
Yesteryear is being developed as a film by Amazon MGM Studios, with Anne Hathaway attached to star and produce.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
