I read a tweet about how Anne Hathaway is making a movie about a book about a tradwife influencer who magically wakes up in the year 1855. I thought to myself, that’s a fun idea, and then read the book, Yesteryear. It was eminently not fun.

The book is written in the first person, and the first person is miserable. She’s bitter and mean and she assumes that everyone around her is also bitter and mean. The world of Yesteryear is populated exclusively by expats from the most pathologically riled-up corners of the modern media ecosystem: woke liberals, redpilled manosphereites, NPCs with coloured hair and piercings, psycho MAGA diehards.

It feels like a pervasive living nightmare (which, of course, it is) — but there is no knowing wink towards the kinder, subtler world that actually exists out there.

The twist at the end redeems none of it, I’m afraid. I’m not even sure that I would say it was neat. It did not reframe things redemptorily. It did not reveal new information. I knew there would be a twist, and I'd hoped that it would explain why everyone was a terrible person — maybe everyone around Natalie is actually happy and nice, but her relentless narcissism hardens her to the beauty of the world? — but no: every other character really was stupid and horrible the whole time.

Upsetting book, upsetting people, upsetting story, feels almost like a strawman vendetta against conservatives or influencers or karens or something, oh & it turns out Anne Hathaway consulted on writing the book as well?