Literanista
June 2, 2026
Disclosure: I received a complimentary advance review copy of Yesteryear. As always, receiving a galley does not influence my opinions. It does, however, make writing a critical review more uncomfortable. Writers know how much labor, hope, and vulnerability go into a book. I never enjoy publicly criticizing another author’s work. My goal is not to diminish the effort behind a novel but to honestly describe my reading experience.
I finally finished Yesteryear, though it took me considerably longer than expected. I put it down several times. It was not poorly written. In fact, I was intrigued enough to keep returning to it. The book held my attention. It generated questions. It provoked reactions. It lingered in my mind after I closed it.
Yet the experience left me unsettled in ways that had less to do with the story itself and more to do with what the novel represents. As I read, I found myself asking a question that I suspect many readers may eventually ask:
Is this fiction, or is it a cultural think piece disguised as fiction? That distinction matters.
The novel’s central concerns feel deeply rooted in contemporary anxieties surrounding influencer culture, parasocial relationships, performative authenticity, family branding, and the monetization of private life and minors. These are undeniably relevant subjects. They are also subjects that have dominated public conversation in recent years through documentaries, podcasts, social media discourse, and highly publicized cases involving family influencers and online personalities.
My issue with the book and perhaps the buzz is that it feels engineered around these qualms in an exploitative way, intentionally triggering.
Rather than discovering a world through story, I frequently felt the machinery of the argument beneath the narrative. The novel seemed intent on guiding my interpretation and emotional response. At times I felt less like a reader participating in a work of fiction and more like an audience member being carefully managed through a cultural critique. That sensation became increasingly difficult to ignore.
As a writer, I also found many of the influences visible on the page. I thought of Kindred. I thought of Educated. I thought of the public fascination with influencer scandals and family-vlogger controversies. More recently, discussions surrounding figures such as Ruby Franke, Ballerina Farm and the online discourse comparing aspects of the novel to highly visible influencer families only amplified that feeling.
None of these parallels are inherently problematic. Literature has always borrowed from contemporary life. The strongest novels however, transform their influences into something larger than the moment that inspired them.
What troubled me was the sense that Yesteryear may ultimately be too dependent upon the current cultural conversation. It borrows power from debates already underway rather than generating entirely new questions of its own. As a result, I found myself wondering whether the novel will feel as urgent and relevant ten years from now as it does today. Can it stand on its own without the zeitgeist context?
The books that endure often reveal something fundamental about human nature. The books that fade tend to be those that successfully capture a moment but remain tethered to it. I am genuinely uncertain which category Yesteryear will ultimately occupy.
Ironically, my concerns about the novel are also concerns about contemporary publishing itself.
The intense competition surrounding this manuscript, the bidding wars, the film adaptation interest, and the considerable buzz all point toward an industry increasingly adept at identifying stories that reflect conversations already happening online. Publishing and entertainment companies are becoming extraordinarily skilled at recognizing cultural momentum and packaging it into marketable narratives.
That is not necessarily a criticism of the author. In many ways, it may be a criticism of the ecosystem.
Books are increasingly expected to arrive with built-in discourse. They are marketed not simply as stories but as events. As conversation starters. As social media phenomena. As intellectual property.
Viewed through that lens, Yesteryear is fascinating.
It may be less a novel about influencer culture than a product of influencer culture itself.
That observation does not make it a failure. Nor does it make it unworthy of attention. I finished it. I thought about it. I am writing about it now. I recognize this.
My lasting impression is that Yesteryear functions more as a mirror than a masterpiece. It reflects the obsessions, anxieties, and incentives of this particular moment with remarkable clarity.
Whether that makes it enduring literature remains an open question.
