family drama
Natalie is an influencer, sharing her family life on a farm in Idaho via social media. She positions herself as a modern-day pioneer mother, working the Yesteryear farm while caring for her five children and husband. And she’s got a couple million followers. Unfortunately, her reality is not what she presents to the world. And when things get out of her control, she doesn’t handle it well. And then she seems to be uprooted and sent back in time as an actual pioneer mother of some other family.
This book is like nothing I’ve read before. It got really crazy at times. In that way, it was promising. I was interested in the influencer storyline up until I realized I’d really had enough of Natalie already. She wasn’t a pleasant person by any measure. And I generally don’t enjoy reading about unlikeable protagonists. However, I was curious about the time travel storyline. That, in combination with all the positive reviews I’d heard about this novel, I stuck with it.
Caro Claire Burke uses “flashbacks” into the contemporary life Natalie left behind when she was whisked into the past to explain how Natalie got to the point where she was at the beginning of the novel.
Natalie has a superiority complex and is a control freak. Everyone in her life is a prop, as is her religion. For someone claiming that religion is so important to her, she is extremely uncharitable and doesn’t even go to church. Anyone who disagrees with her is incorrect or stupid or jealous of her. She doesn’t mother her children. She doesn’t connect with her husband. Her family members are simply pawns in her giant, fictional, perfect life, and she is never at fault for anything. She doesn’t work the farm. The driving force in her life is to be more interesting and satisfied than her college roommate. She thinks she’s smarter than everyone else when, in actually, she lacks critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence. She shows no appreciation or love for anyone. She doesn’t know how to fit into the construct of every day civilization. She doesn’t know how to find her own joy, let alone share in other people’s joy. The one thing that arouses her is her idea of God.
There were some thought-provoking aspects of Natalie’s story which will make good fodder for book club (other than “what did we just read???”). For one, the idea of framing undesired tasks as if you’re performing for an audience was intriguing. For another, Burke spotlighted some genuine feminist concerns regarding “women’s duties” and struggles faced by women working outside the home. Additionally, I liked seeing the juxtaposition of current day life on a farm vs. American pioneer days on a farm.
AND THEN at the very end, the book turns out to be a recrimination of most of the people portrayed in this novel! After having to listen to almost 14 hours of Natalie’s life, I was rewarded with rational reality! That made me feel much better, honestly, despite the sadness with which this book left me. The moral of the story is that you can’t stop progress and if you try to stop time or avoid change, you are misguided and will lose in the end. Down with censuring! Down with people who think they know what’s best for everyone and have any right to impose their beliefs on others! Down with liars!
The audiobook narrator, Rebecca Lowman, was good. She especially had some nice male voices in her repertoire. But she often read the book robotically. I tend to think this was intentional in order for her to relay Natalie’s psychopathy. Also, I’ve heard her narrate another novel as the voice of a sullen teenager and my comments about that performance were that she didn’t come across as robotic or unfeeling, as might have happened in another narrator’s hands. So, I’ll say that Lowman’s robotic portrayal served to make me even more annoyed with Natalie and that was probably her intention. I’ll give her an A-.
