FLYOVER DEEPDIVE - Yesteryear By Caro Clare Burke

Besties, it’s Book Club Time! This week, Emily and Lauren take a break from discussing TV the internet can’t stop talking about to discuss the BOOK the internet can’t stop talking about. Yesteryear, by political and pop culture podcaster Caro Claire Burke, takes us inside the mind of the fictional tradwife social media influencer Natalie Heller Mills. The story is about what happens when Natalie wakes up to discover she is actually in the 1855 pioneer era. This book is a WILD RIDE, and the Besties talk about it all—influencer culture, religious trauma, the manosphere, and of course, Goldie Hawn in Overboard. So many spoilers, so if you want to read this book and haven’t read it, don’t listen. If you have read it and are dying to talk about it with someone, welcome! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm Lauren and I'm Emily. And we're Midwest Besties. All right, everyone. Welcome to our flyover deep dive on yesteryear. Yeah, this is our first time doing one of these on book. Yesties Book Club. Besties Book Club, BBC, baby. Yesteryear by Carol Claire Burke. She is a podcaster.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

She was like a TikToker, and yes, is now a podcaster. Okay. Yeah, and I followed her for a really long time. What's her vibe? Um, she a lot of like cultural commentary. Okay. Um, but in a more cerebral way, like just a little bit more um um highbrow. Um like the New York Timesy? A little bit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but she talks a lot about influencers and she talks a lot about like trad wife culture. Well, then this is the book for you, baby. And like kids and influencing. And I think like also like the pipeline of like social media and influencing to politics and like its influence over like our like culture at large.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

I'm definitely gonna follow her now. She's really smart. Yeah. Um, let's do a synopsis real quick. I'll read it. Okay. My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive. Natalie Heller Mills is a traditional American woman, a beautiful wife and mother who sells her pioneer lifestyle of raw milk and farm fresh eggs to her millions of social media followers. Who does that sound like? So, what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, and her kitchen is hiding industrial grade fridges and ovens, and her husband is the heir to a political dynasty. One morning she wakes up in a life that isn't hers, her home, her husband, her children. They're all familiar but wrong. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity. Her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Carved into a wooden threshold is a date. 1855.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

So this book was actually marketed as a thriller. Would you call it a thriller? No. No, I would absolutely not call it a thriller. It's psychological in nature.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

For sure. Um, but it's probably psychological f for the female perspective. So like we don't know how to categorize it. Right. I would say, even though they are not similar at all, like it reminds me of this book called Anniebot. Um, it reminds me of Night Bitch. It reminds me of these, like, where it's like you're hearing an internal dialogue to a woman who is not mentally sane. Right, right, right. Um, what were your thoughts? What are your what are your what are your beginning thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Okay, so this book was just not what I I think the overwhelming consensus is this book is not what anybody really thought it would be. And I think that there was a big mismatch to even how it was described, um, just that what you just read to what the actual book was. So I was so once I sort of like readjusted to that, um, I liked it, but the I will say it was 30% too long.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

So for me, I 100% see where where you where you are getting what you are getting from that. Like I didn't have any expectations, but I can definitely say with the synopsis, it could have been this like zany, like, this girl can't, she doesn't know how to milk a cow. Right. She's stumbling in the mud. Right. Very like woman in a different aspect, like almost like an overboard where it's like this woman's out of her element, you know? Uh and it would have been really good. I love overboard. So good. Little known fact. Same. So famous.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Um, yeah, I listened to it and I already told Emily this, but I feel like if I would have read the physical book, I would have DNF'd it.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

So in the middle, so like the first like hundred pages. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Locked in.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Fabulous. Yeah. It's like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

And I think something really important to know about this book is that it is all a first-person POV, and you are like in her brain. You are like, you know. And it's not a fun place to be. You are privy to her like innermost thoughts and like everything that runs through her head.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

So basically it's like a split timeline where we're she's it it starts on what she's like the last day of of the life that I had for myself. Right. Um, and it's her on this farm. Again, it's just think Ballerina Farm. If you know Ballerina Farm, like that's what it is. Yeah. Um, like a beautiful pioneer-looking kitchen, but again, they have two nannies and producers, and she has eight million followers, and her husband is like it there's a sense that her husband's billionaire family is bankrolling all of this. Yes. Um, and then we we are kind of pushed back to this narrative where she's waking up and it's 1855. Um, again, there are spoilers moving forward. Yes. So if you have not read yesteryear, um stop listening to this and go finish it and then listen to it. Yes. We get kind of two perspectives where it's like how Natalie came to be this person that we meet in the beginning of the book. So it starts when she went to college. Yeah. And then the other timeline is her in this 1855, but we're never quite sure. Because even in like the synopsis of the book, is it like, is it a reality show? Very quickly, she's like, People are watching me. Like, what is this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

This, like, I've been transported here, I'm trapped here. Yes. And so we are really just as like disoriented and as confused as she is in trying to like understand like, is this like some type of like weird actual time travel? Is this witchcraft? Is it a reality show? Is she in psychosis? Like, what like I was very confused. I did not guess the twist, but you guessed the twist. I guessed it pretty immediately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So again, spoiler alert, yeah. Um, from as soon as I learned that her baby that she was pregnant with was named Mary. Yeah. And that this child was named Mary. You put it all together. Right. And that Caleb was old Caleb. Yeah. And then it wasn't only until I found, or when she found the piece of microphone, those three things put together that. Because it was from And it's very like tonally reminded me of Westworld, which like the twist, spoiler alert for Westworld, but the twist of Westworld is that is that we are dealing with two different timelines. But they're the same people, but just in two different timelines. Totally. So um I guessed that what the twist was was this was in fact a time jump. And she is for some reason deciding to live her life like this in the future. I thought another reason is that they she never described what she looked like in this 1855 timeline. So we knew old Caleb was old, but I kind of assumed like the reason why she's not talking about her hands or what she looked like or what her face looked like is because she was old. Yeah. Because in the other timeline, like where she's growing up or when she's getting famous.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

She was talking about how beautiful she was all the time. Yeah. It was a primary focus. Yes. I was like, I feel like I'm normally really good at twists. Like Matt would probably You're normally better at twists than I am. Like Matt would probably like attest that like I'm annoying to watch TV and movies with because I immediately will like guess a twist. And he's like, God damn it. Yeah. Um, I did not. I don't know if I was just so locked into her mind that like I couldn't get outside of it. Um, but so we start, we learn like a little bit about Natalie, and like what you also need to know is like she is the most unlikable character, I think, of all time. Ever. Like, there is really not a redeeming quality about her. Like, she's a really bad person.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

And it's like I I was telling, because Jake was thinking about reading it, and I was like, it's basically like, no, women are good, women are fucked no matter what. Like, because she definitely thinks that she is better than everybody. So like she holds herself to this like high standard of being this good Christian woman. There are very strong, like, if not vague, Christian values attached. But there's never like there's never like it's never known like what I mean, we know what political party she's in, but like they don't even like talk in in terms of like Democrat or Republican.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

And they don't say like Mormon or Catholic. And they never say what religion she is. Yeah, it's kind of left up to interpretation. So like, which I love.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

I love that that was kind of kept vague. So like when she because she like goes to Harvard because she's very smart, and like the she instantly just hates and also it does not fit in with this group of regular ass college.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

But she doesn't want to fit in with them because she automatically is like, I'm better than you. You're all disgusting, you're all like mouth-breathing losers, like look, you're all whores, getting drunk and being sluts. Like, she is a sociopath. Yeah. Because she also, it's like, and it's really hard for me to trace the roots of that because like she grew up without a dad. So there's like daddy issues. Her dad left the family when she was young, and her mom, instead of saying like they he left her and got divorced, he she always says he passed on. Um, you know, letting people believe that he died when he didn't die. And so they all like had to uphold this lie, which is really fucked up. But like her mom, and her mom's a nightmare in the way that like I think moms are normally nightmares.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

Um, like probably like well intentioned, but like very misguided.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

I definitely wouldn't see her as like a villain. This isn't like a this isn't like a carry, carries mom situation.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

No, so it's like there's no like root of trauma to explain why she's such a bad person. So I'm like, oh, she's just like a bad apple. Yeah, she's a bad seed.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Which I kind of like. I love those. I kind of like that though, but it has to be shorter. So basically, all of this shit happens, and then in the middle, we just get her very slowly becoming famous. So I'm very slow.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Like the relationship with her meeting her husband in college.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

So her husband is a huge character, and he is like super rich, and his interest in her brings her the value that she has always thought she deserves. Right. Um and these things are happening to her, and like you, as like a fully formed adult with like a a frontal lobe developed, like are seeing these things like, oh, she's too young to be doing this. Yeah. Like she doesn't know what she's doing. She's too young to be having a kid. And she has she has her first kid and she has really severe postpartum depression. But it's never stated as that. No, it's very stated as like uh I I just every this is everyone's fault. This is every woman's fault for not preparing me for this. And I'm just not a good and I'm just not motherly, but I'm going to fight tooth and nail to be what I consider to be a good mother.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

So it's basically like she asks her mom, like at one point, she's like, How did you do this? Like, how did you do everything that you did? You were a single mom and you worked, and like we were always dressed well and clean and you cooked for us. And her mom was like, Well, you know what I would do is I would pretend I was being watched. Like, I would pretend I had an audience. And so then Natalie at first is like really pissed and is like disillusioned. So fucked up. I can't believe that. And then she's like, Well, wait a second, and so then she starts so it's this idea of performing, even when no one's watching. Yeah, which then this whole book is basically about performing, but it's like, who are you performing for? And then that translates into her like starting to build a social media presence. So basically, like her husband is like a failure to launch. Like he has money from daddy and mommy who are like fucked up, and his dad is a senator, like Emily said, it's a political dynasty. They get married really young, she gets pregnant immediately, drops out of college, and is like it's so funny because throughout uh like a lot of the book, she is comparing, she's looking, she's benchmarking her life with the life of her college roommate that she like detested, and her name is Rena. And so she's sort of this like through line character that like we only hear about from Natalie, like stalking her on social media to see like where she's at. And so it's really interesting because it's like she runs into Rena, and Rena's like, and she and Natalie's like, I'm pregnant and I'm married, and I make sure to flash my diamond, and I look so beautiful, and I'm going to Paris.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

And the whole time her husband's name is Caleb. At this point, we're like, Oh, he sounds like a winner. Like, he sounds like obviously you obviously believe, like, oh, maybe she is all of these things that she claims to be because she has this person who's deemed her you know, the the person to choose this lifestyle with. Like, if you go to Paris before they go they get married or before they have their baby, and it's all very fancy. But then after she has this baby, we realize like he hasn't done fucking anything since he graduated.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

All of facade.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

It's all of facade. It's all of facade already.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yeah. They move in with her mom after um they have the baby, and she hates being a mom. She clearly has PPD, and nobody is recognizing that, helping her.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

He just like sits on the computer all day. Um, and his thing is like, oh, I we don't need money. Why would I get a job when I'm gonna get a hair? And we just know, like, oh, actually he's a loser. And we find out that he's actually like the loser of the family, and even when they go around like his family, like they all kind of keep their distance from him because he's the loser.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

And there was also this like footnote that was never explored where she mentions that she learned later that he and his mom took baths together long past when it was appropriate. Oh my god, I totally forgot about it. Because it was really never circled back to. So it's like, what?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

These like weird that is not like like plot hole-ish. There, and that's not the last time something like that happens in the book. No. That it's like, oh, that was really fucked up. And like not, it wasn't seen through. And I think maybe that was done maybe on purpose because that is how these like strictly like religious, yeah, traditional households behave. It's like something that is like weird and horrific, and we just sweep it under the rug.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

So never talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

And I never talk about it again. And you wonder why we have all like horrible anxiety. Yeah. Um, but it's like there are a lot of tropes, like the her mother-in-law is like addicted to pills, yeah. Tries to get her addicted to pills, uh-huh. Mother's Little Help Bar. Uh-huh. Um, so on their first date, she mentions like, I would love to like have a farm, but it was just like this fly-off topic to like make her sound wholesome and whimsical. Yeah. Um, but then she decides, like, hey, this is what I'm gonna do with my life, and this is what Caleb's gonna do with his life. Yeah. He's we're just gonna buy this farm.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

Because they're desperate to get him to get a job that's like appropriate and suitable, like, because then he's like, I'm gonna be a kindergarten teacher.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

And there was nothing more disgusting than him being a kindergarten teacher. It was crazy. Like, she'd rather have him be like um because very quickly the manosphere is introduced as this very important part of Caleb's life.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

So, what we see going on with Caleb too is like we're watching him become radicalized.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yes, like a hundred, and he's really a perfect target for a listless, rich, um, well-intentioned man. Yeah. I loved his character, stupid. Yeah, so gullible, stupid, so fucking stupid, so dumb, like wholesome and like as a bitch wife, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Like, really, really fits into this mold. Yeah. So basically, they they go to live with his in-laws and she's with her in-laws, and she's like, they're gonna whip him into shape. And she kind of quickly realizes like they're like, no bitch, you need to whip him into shape. This is what you are supposed to do. This is your problem now. So at that point, she decides, okay, we're gonna buy a farm. And she goes to her father-in-law and she's like, We need five million dollars to start a farm. And he gives it to them, and so they move to yesteryear ranch. And she doesn't start her Instagram account like immediately.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

And this is where the book starts to slow down. Yes. So, like in the 1855 plot line, it's essentially like she tries to escape, yeah. Um, and then she ends up getting her foot like trapped in a bear trap and her her kind of being like nursed back to health through like old-timey tonics and ointments. Um, Caleb, we recognize as Caleb, like there is this part where she like there is without a doubt that they are the same person, whether it's like an alternate timeline or alternate reality. The multiverse. It's a yeah. Um, but he is very like strict with her and mean and like harsh and he hits her and he's abusive. Yeah. So it's very different from this like kind-hearted Caleb we know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

In in where she really runs the show. Like, like he runs the show air quotes, but in her head, she's like, You're so fucking stupid. Like, she's like actually my dumb, stupid husband.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah, like she hates him. She absolutely despises him and they have terrible like the way she describes the way the author describes their sex life is so sad and uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So a contingency, so her father-in-law, I'm sorry, we're jumping around a lot, but this is just a lot. But so her father-in-law, a contingency of him giving them the money to open the farm or to buy the farm was that sh he wanted her to have a lot of babies with him because I think he was seeing like, create a big American family, Caleb will be good in politics because he's an idiot, and we can put the right people around him to influence policy that we want. Who does this remind you of? And uh so they're sort of hatching this plan and then like putting it all into play without Caleb like truly knowing. So she's trying to get pregnant, trying to get pregnant. They have really they don't, they barely have sex, like he can barely perform. Yes. Uh, we shall say mushy is the word that she uses to describe. And then finally, she's like gives him a bull after one unsuccessful attempt, and she's like, I don't care how you get it done, just get it done. I want to get pregnant. And then that's how she ends up getting pregnant and continues to get pregnant the whole time. Like year after year after year after year. It's just like constantly pregnant. Again, who does that remind you of?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

I mean, so like as she becomes more famous, she uh hires nannies and is becoming more and more opposite of this ideal that she's promoting on social media. Right. I mean, and all of it's false. Like they have one cow that they name sassafras, but it's actually, in fact, multiple cows because the cows keep dying. It's awful. Um, and this is where I think it starts to like differ. Whereas like I think Ballerina Farm probably has a pretty strict, not strict, but like pretty like they're more successful than this. Yeah. Like she never actually like buys into this like lifestyle that she's living. And I do believe a lot of trad wives buy into this lifestyle a little more than what this woman is doing.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Like basically, Natalie knows exactly like this is all in orchestration and it's all phony. Like she thinks it's all like fucking stupid and ludicrous. Um, but she's also like, I know this is how I can ingratiate myself to people and learns pretty quickly, like, this is how like I can develop a following. Yeah. And I, by being this like good Christian woman and promoting these Christian values and promoting this like return to the frontier lifestyle, then like I can make money off of that. Yeah. Because the other piece of this is that Doug is gearing up for Doug's her father-in-law. Yes, he's gearing up for a presidential run, and you need a war chest for that. And so he starts pulling back on funds, and she's like, fuck, they've already run through the five million, and so she she can't rely on Caleb to help, so it's kind of all on her. So she starts making tons of money from social media.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Well, it is because of Caleb that she goes viral because Caleb is ingratiating himself with um manosphere freaks, yeah, like people who live stream all the time. Chat rooms. Um, and this guy who has millions of followers starts talking about how this yesteryear ranch woman that she is Natalie. This is this is the women, the woman we should be rooting for. Someone who just wants to stay home and raise babies and cook. And mind you, this woman cannot stand her kids.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

She hates all of her kids.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Um, so she gets she goes from having like 3,000 followers to like millions of followers pretty much overnight. She's gaining, she says at one point she's gaining 30,000 followers a week. Uh-huh. And she gets a nanny. And Caleb is like resistant to this at first, but he just listens to whatever she says. Right. Um, and then essentially keeps having kids to the point where her last two she like doesn't even know.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Yeah. She also, they're like peddling that they have this like organic lifestyle and they have organic produce. Um, but they don't. They use pesticides and just hide it.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Um, they have a whole farm crew that they hide. Like she made like to the point where like Caleb really wanted to um have organic to do organic farming and she tells the workers that they hired that she like horribly disparages as well in her in her brain um to go out and work at night and spray at night and hide all of the chemicals from Caleb.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

It was very, and I don't know if this was a part of the satire of like what we think w when there are two bad people in a relationship, which is like the man is the scullible idiot in this woman, very Adam and Eve, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

It's almost like is this a com like satire of what the manosphere thinks? You know what I mean? I think it is a little bit, a little bit, yeah. Because it is like she's this like bitch wife who needs to be brought to heal, and then we do kind of see that in this like weird 1850s timeline. So it's like there's a lot of themes, and I think there's a lot of like smart themes and really relevant themes to like what we see today. I just don't know if the execution was fully there.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

I think if we just would have got rid of that middle part where it's just like her in the pioneer days, nothing's happening, yeah, and then like her in present day, where it's like we're not really learning anything more about her. No. Um, because to be in this kind of dark satire and to explore these themes, it's really challenging.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

Yeah, it sucks.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

So it's not it's like it's not a fun place to be. You don't want to be in her head for very long. So things are kicking back up, I would say, in the last like 20%. We've she hires this producer, and this producer instantly is like, what the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Well, this producer seems to like really admire her. She's a college student, she says she dropped out. Um, that that Natalie's actually a radical.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

Like, she is like a radical feminist, which is like a really important trope on the internet that we talk about, where like, yeah, like the Venn diagram with like crazy mahas and like totally people like like me, like there are some overlap. Yeah. Like, oh, I do agree that we should start putting more like parameters on companies to prevent us from eating plastics.

SPEAKER_03 24:05

Totally. Yeah. Like the two ends of the spectrum are closer together than the to the middle, for sure. So it, like I said, like Carol brings in a lot of like really interesting, relevant themes. Yep. Um, I just think some of it gets really lost in like the the trudge.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

And there's a lot of ideas.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

A lot of ideas that maybe it was like we needed to like think think it through a little bit. So anyway, Shannon is the producer. She comes for this interview and she's like, You're a radical, like what you're doing is awesome. And Natalie interviews her, and through this interview, you can see Shannon coming to the realization that all this shit is fake. And she's like, Oh, like she sees the pesticide and she's like, I thought you guys were organic. And she's like, Oh, there's nannies, like, oh, you have farm hands? Like, I had like, you know, I had no idea. Um, Natalie immediately hires her and her content starts to really, really improve.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

It feels it's very clear that like, even though Natalie hated all of those college girls, like these like liberal college women, she also desperately wanted their attention, which is why she hired someone like Shannon. Shannon is 19, she's like fresh out of color.

SPEAKER_03 25:16

She has purple hair. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Like kind of a so here's this like alternative girl that she normally never would have connected with, who's saying, like, I actually really admire what you're doing. Yeah. Um, so that's like catnip to her. Yeah. Even though in the back of her mind she's like, This isn't good. This girl, like, even like so. When she takes the girl like through the farm and the ranch, and she sees like the farmhands and the nannies, it's like she keeps saying, like, I was gonna fire her, I'm gonna fire her that day. But then she continues to not fire her and become more ingrained with her. And um, I also just didn't we end up finding out that she had an affair, and we know this in the beginning of the book that she had an affair with Caleb, which I thought that was really weirdly placed.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

It was weirdly in the beginning or at the end, both. Yeah, I agree. It was weird. It was also just like worse.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Everything that happened to her, like with Shannon exposing them, I felt like was on par, except for like why would she randomly fuck Caleb?

SPEAKER_03 26:13

I know, I agree. We didn't need it. No, we really didn't, we really didn't need it, except I think to maybe get her really mad, get her mad because like sh you know, Shannon is basically like, oh, he can't perform for you. Yeah, like oh I'm so I think that was like a piece of it. Yeah. And Shannon seems to like listen to him, and you know, he is spouting off like a lot of like crazy ass ideas because he's like living in chat rooms, and uh Shannon starts challenging him and like actually having discourse with him, and he feels like maybe respected and heard for the first time in his life, so he's like obsessed with her, yeah, and comes to Natalie and he's like, I'm gonna move to New York, I'm gonna start a new life. And Natalie immediately calls her father-in-law and puts a stop to it. Yep. Um, and then she goes to Shannon to confront her, and through her first person POV, it sounds like she like loses her shit and is strangling her. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And then we come to find out later she sexually assaulted her. There's this like weird, so basically, Shannon once she because after this incident she quits, obviously. And then there's like this big news story, this expose on Yesteryear Ranch. Um, and in this interview, Shannon basically says, like, yeah, my like pants were off and she was straddling me while she was strangling me. And then the the reporter says, So you're saying it was erotic in nature. It was so weird, which was such a weird question. Yeah, if we're talking about erotic. No, at all. But then, and then this this point is touched on so lightly where it's like, obviously, this is a big deal because it's like the idea of a woman being like a lesbian sexual predator is like no go. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

So Natalie is watching this interview with her in-laws, with her in-laws and with Caeland. Yeah, because they're basically like, we need to watch, and they have this whole like crisis team. They have lawyers. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's watching it together because they're kind of like, we need to know what what kind of damage control we're able to do. So they so Doug thought he knew what happened. Well, then they don't. And and basically they're all like, Are you a lesbian? And she's like, This is crazy, she's lying. And then like Caleb comes to her later and he's like, So is this why you didn't ever want to have sex with me? And she's like, You didn't want to have sex with me. So it's just like interesting because you're like, she is not a reliable narrator.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 28:46

So you're like, even like you know, thinking about her comparing herself to Rena all the time and how like she's doing better than Rena. But it's like in that very final, not final scene, but like when she says goodbye to Rena at college, and she's like, she has she's probably so jealous of me, like, look at me. And like for me, I'm like, it would be really interesting to be in Rena's mind right now because she's probably like, This is fucked up and sad. Yep. Like, I wouldn't trade places with this woman for the life of me.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Because then we end up finding out with this like pioneer life that it is actually 15 years in the future, and that she kept having kids well into her 40s. The last kid, they had a home birth, um, and she ended up like being uh developmentally scented because she didn't have oxygen for too long. Because you think, because you just get so few details in this 1855 timeline that like Maeve is probably five.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

Five.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

When in fact she's actually 10. Yeah. Um, and we know this because their oldest daughter, like who is, you know, the fur the one she has when she's 19 years old, like is an adult in in this Clementine non-1855, but actually 15 years in the future timeline, she has come to take the kids. And we get and we see what this world is like. Basically, this world is so awful and hard, but at the same time, like they're choosing to live it, and then they're also not even really living it. So, like there's this cabin on their property that Caleb goes to that he literally named Manosphere, that like has a TV. Yeah. So he would like go and like a radio and a walkie-talkie. They would just buy vegetables at the supermarket and then take off the stickers and like roll them in dirt. Yeah. So I understand why people are like, what the fuck is this book?

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's it's very polarizing right now. The other thing, so basically, it's like their life blows up after this interview. And and then Doug pays off everybody.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

That was also a plot hole where it's like, oh, Doug just paid off everybody, don't even worry about it.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

Like, paid off everybody, made all of like the press lawsuits, CPS, like everything go away. They go entirely off the grid, and they're like, this is the only way we can like move forward is to actually live our life like it's in the 1850s.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Just because you like live like 40 miles outside of town, you can't like evade lawsuits.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

I I mean, I guess if you have enough. Yeah, that was just like a footnote again.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

How you uh would evade like sending your kids, like having Well, they said they were like homeschooling and like any fucking idiot can homeschool. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

That was another thing. Like their kids like couldn't, they were like not like Caleb was homeschooling them and it was like he was not teaching them. Like Clementine didn't know what an ocean was. When she was like 12. Yeah, it was really, really bleak. Um, and so they're like they're cho so we learn basically they're choosing to live this way, and that she is very mentally ill, and she is like comes in and out of like being present, and it's it makes so much sense because Mary, who she is pregnant with, like in the first in the last day before everything changes, is the oldest daughter now, and she really runs the show. She makes the dinner, she tells Natalie what to do, um, she takes care of the kids. Like, she and Caleb seem to be uh more on the same like level than with Natalie, and it is confusing because you're like, this isn't the way this would be in pioneer days. Like, this doesn't make any sense.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

There was always something weird, totally, or it's like she got this tonic that made her feel better when we find out it's just like a benzo that they like crush into water.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

And we find out so two of the boys, the older boys, Samuel and Stetson, like they were kind of they were cosplaying this a little bit as well. They were adults, and and Clementine says the boys had their creepy cabins, so like they were on their property too, and then they would like play the neighbors and come and like help Caleb and then like have dinner with them. And then Mary was like interested in one of them because she didn't know they were brother and sister, like so fucked up, so fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

And then, like, what was another thing that they like they weren't like raising any of their own vegetables, right? And like even all the meat they got, it wasn't like from hunting, it was like this fake pioneer life that they made for Natalie, yeah, and they and this concept always goes back and forth is like, does this world exist for Natalie or does this world exist for Caleb? Right. Because it's like Caleb couldn't live any other way.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Um and it's interesting because it was like she he is kind of living the manosphere dream where it's like it's very patriarchal. He's like hitting her, yep, he's threatening her, he's also like having sex with her. They're like having sex good sex. It's really weird how they have they were having good sex for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah. I don't know what she was trying to say with that.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

I think that that was commentary. For me, I took that as like, well, he for the first time was like he was in charge, and like that, like this whole like incel behavior of like, I need to be the man and I'm calling the shots and I deserve this from you. Like, that's what he wanted. It was fucked.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

So, like, she thinks in this like pioneer timeline that she's pregnant because she's like having good sex for the first time, and then we find out when we find out that we're actually in the future, they're like, No, bitch, you're 50 years old. Like Clementine's literally like, Mom, you're in menopause. You're in menopause. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 34:28

And she's like, Oh.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

So Clementine is there because she's taking the rest of the kids because they had they had Mary and then they had three more, two other two more boys and a girl. Um, and uh she then it like flo and then it goes even forward more, like five years more, and we find out that she's like serving like a 30-year sentence and she's still nuts.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

She's sitting down to do a TV interview with none other than Rena. So weird. So weird. So we find we get this like full circle like moment with Rena, and Rena is interviewing her, her like big prime time sit-down where she like talks about her life and why she did what she did. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

And like she goes in and out of like we find out like the reason why how she like got like the reason why she didn't know where she was is because she this happens to her all the time. Where she's like, it's like this isn't my life, this is in my family, this isn't my house. Yeah, it's like nope, it's all of these things.

SPEAKER_03 35:26

Because they like brought her back to the house, yeah, to interview, which is like how would they ever get clearance to do that? I don't know. She was in shackles, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Like that's what they never like. Wait, is she serving the sentence? Because like, how would she get out of prison?

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Yeah, that's a great we should ask Claire or Carol Burke that question.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Yeah. So, like ultimately, these themes. I mentioned to Lauren that this was kind of presented to me as this like rip from the headlines, ballerina farms. But at the end of the day, it it it reminded me obviously of a lot more Ruby Frank or Ruby Frankie. Yeah, Ruby Frankie. Uh, from Eight Passengers. This is a woman who like fell into like a literal cult and like had this like woman like manipulate her, and then they ended up like severely abusing all of her kids.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Yeah, we're like evil, evil people.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Um, and it definitely gave me inklings of that, where it's like, I just don't care about my kids. Like this is a way for us to make money.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Very detached. Yeah, very like that's how I would describe Natalie. Like, she was very detached from her children, she was detached from Caleb, detached from reality, as we can't come to find out. I thought it would be more um, I just thought there would be like more humanity in it, if that makes sense. Yeah, it just wasn't that. No. Um, I thought like we would see like just the I can read first person, but like it there was just something really like felt it just felt very real that you were in her head. Yeah. The way that it was written. Like that POV was like, I am in this woman's brain.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

And that's what was so genius about it. That's what's gonna make people keep recommending this book.

SPEAKER_03 37:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Because it is such a mind fuck.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

It's a mind fuck.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

You are constantly like it is, I was it is work to read this book. Because like Emily and I would like constantly text her. I was like, what the fuck am I reading? Like I texted her and I like the roller coaster emoji. I'm like, I'm finally fucking finished with this book.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

I like text later, I'm like, welcome back to sanity.

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Like, think of like put me in a depressive state. No, I have I was like, I need to switch gears. Like, I need to read something like lighthearted now.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

I started watching Be My Guest, and then I'm like, oh my god, yes, that's what you mean. Beach House Chronicles.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Do you ever watch Beach House Chronicles? Yes, I love it. I love it. Yeah, you just we needed a palette cleanser. 100%. So, like overall, would you recommend somebody read this? 100%. I would say read it because it's so in the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

I oh I always read a book, maybe a book or two like this a year. Yeah. Where it's like, I can't wait to be done with this. I can't wait to get out of the day. You have to finish. Yeah, because it's like it's uh I I enjoy the mind fuck. I enjoy the like Yeah, totally. Um, and even like with her plot holes, I think she's so brilliant in her plot holes where it's like, did she do that on purpose? Right. Or was this just a plot hole? I know. I totally agree with you. Um so because I just think that like most of the time, most of the time reading should be enjoyable. And if you don't want to read a weird fucked up book like that, like don't read this book. I'm not gonna judge you for not wanting to experience that. For some reason, probably because I'm mentally ill, I enjoy going through those experiences.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

No, I loved it. It's mind-bending. Yes, it's mind-bending. And I think that's you know, it's good for us. Yes. And there's certain themes I can't do that with, like, child loss is like a no for me. So there's certain things like where I just like won't do. Yeah. This was good. Like this was enough, like dark enough, but not too dark where I was like truly disturbed. Correct. So yeah, so you know, I don't know, read it or don't. So what are what are your thoughts? Or would you recommend it? Yeah, I would. Okay. I would just say, like, I would give, I actually was texting a friend about it, and I like gave her kind of my like full disclosure of like, I would listen to it. I just know in the middle it gets really, really long. It's too long overall. Like, I was just like, it just needed to be like two-thirds of what it was, and it would have been a lot better and just like cleaner.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Um, but I think it is an it sparks a lot of interesting conversation. And that's great, and that's what I love.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

Yeah. Yep. All right. Well, that wraps up our first ever um flyover deep dive. There will be more to come, I'm sure. Mid West Besties Book Club. Thanks again for listening. Like and subscribe to us. And if you want more flyover deep dive on stuff, let us know. Leave us a comment. Thank you. Bye.