Hello Mashed Potatoes!
(Zoe told me I wasn’t allowed to call our listeners that but I just can’t help it. She probably won’t proofread this email so I think I will be able to get away with it! Let me know what you think of the moniker in the comments. Please don’t let Zoe win.)
Welcome to our first bonus episode! Jackie here intro-ing a topic that breaks from our regularly scheduled programming. Zoe and I talk a big talk about producing bonus content all the time, but let’s be honest, we are making negative money from this podcast currently and we are both working brain-intensive day jobs, so bonus content makes more sense in theory than in practice. But for this topic we just couldn’t help ourselves, so here we are, publishing our opinions on the buzziest book of 2026 like every podcaster and #booktok influencer everywhere.
The difference is, we think you should NOT read this book.
What book are we talking about? Yesteryear, a book by first-time author Caro Claire-Burke, that came out early April to major fanfare. And also major personal excitement: both Zoe and I listen to the podcast that this author co-hosts, so we preordered the book AND attended book launch events.
We started reading the book eagerly, enticed by the premise: a tradwife influencer who lives on a farm wakes up in the 1850s and learns what "traditional life" really entails. It's catchy, it's unique, we were eager to find out what the twist was at the end of the book.
But then disaster struck: first Zoe, and then I, finished the book and realized we were completely unsatisfied. Oh, shit. This was monumental, considering how highly we think of this author and her prowess at crafting masters-thesis-level critical analysis of the modern world via her podcast. But despite how unlikely it seemed, it was true: Caro Claire-Burke had deeply let us down.
What was so bad about this book? What had we wanted that we hadn’t found here? And, critically, if you were enticed by the premise and thinking of reading this book but are now left confused and adrift by how strongly we oppose it: what should you read instead?
All this and more in our first (but not last!) bonus episode here at AfterMASH. Available wherever you get your podcasts, including youtube. (Our friend-slash-producer Jae makes amazing cover art for each Youtube video: I recommend you check them out even if you prefer your content to be audio-only. Like look at this one!)
What do you think? Did you read Yesteryear? Did you like it, hate it, somewhere in between? Are we crazy for dissing a book so buzzy that Anne Hathaway secured movie rights before it even published? What books do you think people should read instead?
Thanks for listening!
— Jackie
PS: regularly scheduled content coming out on Tuesday like usual! And stay tuned, it’s a doozie: Zoe is breaking down for us what the “American middle class” is, what it isn’t, and what we should do about it.
PPS: if you like what we do, (a) let us know in a comment or by leaving a review! and (b) share our podcast with your friends!
