Reading Room · Book Discussion
I Don't Need to Like Her
Thoughts on Yesteryear · Caro Claire Burke
01 — The Perfect Picture
Today I want to talk about possibly the most hyped book of the year: Yesteryear. And I’ll try to do it without spoilers because I’m less interested in telling you what happens than in talking about Natalie.
Because apparently we have decided that Natalie is unlikeable. Okay. First of all: she doesn’t have to be likeable.
Natalie is a tradwife — a traditional wife — living on a ranch with her husband Caleb, their five children and a sixth on the way. She takes care of the children. The ranch. The animals. Her husband. The household. She cooks everything from scratch. And, of course, she broadcasts this life on Instagram.
From the outside, it looks like the perfect picture of a perfect family. But is it? Or, if you look closely enough, can you already see the cracks?
Am I a failure?
Something isn’t working?
Fix it.
Something makes you unhappy?
Do it anyway.
Something hurts?
Suck it up.
02 — Something Isn’t Working?
I think this question drives Natalie much more than anything else. Her mother taught her that you keep going. That’s what you do as a woman. As a wife. As a mother.
Because keeping the family — and perhaps even more importantly, the idea of the family — intact is part of the job. So Natalie does. And does. And keeps doing.
Until doing becomes destroying. 🔥
03 — Maybe They Were Perfect for Each Other
I actually think Natalie and Caleb could have been perfect for each other. Just not in the roles Natalie desperately needed them to play.
Natalie is driven. Ambitious. She wants to achieve things. She wants to build something. Caleb is softer. A dreamer. Someone who seems perfectly capable of taking care of the children, staying home and finding happiness in a life that doesn’t require him to constantly prove something.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with either of them. The tragedy is that Natalie can’t allow them to be those people.
Just not in the roles she needed them to play.
NATALIE
Driven
Ambitious
Capable
Wants more
↔
CALEB
Soft
Dreamer
Caretaker
Content
She is allowed to be
difficult.
selfish.
contradictory.
wrong.
Natalie frustrated me. There were moments when I wanted to shake her. There were decisions I couldn’t understand and others where I thought: Natalie, what the hell are you doing?
But that’s exactly why I don’t think Is Natalie likeable? is a particularly interesting question. She doesn’t have to be someone I’d want as a friend. She doesn’t have to make the choices I would make. She doesn’t even have to make choices I can defend.
05 — The Life She Should Want
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with wanting a traditional role as a woman. If that’s genuinely the life you want — if taking care of your home and children and having a more traditional marriage makes you happy — wonderful. There isn’t one correct way to be a woman.
But that’s exactly where Natalie becomes so interesting to me. I’m not convinced this life actually made her happy. It made her mother happy. It fit the values she’d grown up with. It created a beautiful picture of what a family was supposed to look like.
The life she believes she should want
vs.
the person she actually seems to be.
She seems to want the structure of a traditional marriage while having a personality that constantly pushes against the role she has assigned herself within it. And instead of questioning the structure, she keeps trying to force herself — and Caleb — deeper into it.
And Then There’s the Ending
The madness of it.
There comes a point when the story doesn’t simply escalate anymore. It floods you. Everything that has been building underneath the surface suddenly feels completely out of control, and I remember thinking: What the hell am I reading? In the best possible way.
It floods you.
Not because I liked her.
Not because I agreed with her.
Not because I think she was right.
I don’t need to like her.
Give me someone worth arguing about.
