I first heard about Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke on Threads. Someone was talking about how Anne Hathaway had bought the movie rights and everyone was excited for it to be turned into a movie. The idea of a trad-wife going back in time to live the reality she portrayed online as the ideal was very appealing to me and I immediately bought the book straight from Amazon (linked with this link). You know that feeling when a book pulls at you with an invisible tug and you just know in your heart of hearts that it is meant for you in this moment and may become a favorite? That is how I felt when I was reading about this book on Threads so I did not get it from the library or even begin to look for it in a used book store even though it is a bestseller and was bound to be there at some point. I wanted that fresh off the press I am the first one reading it feel to this read so my copy the book would take on some of my spiritual imprint and eventually it would become like an old friend. Anyone else feel like their copies of books do that?

This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The books starts out with Natalie as a young woman and the early strict upbringing that caused her to adopt even more ultraconservative values as she goes off to college, marries a rich but clueless Caleb and has her first child Clem. Caleb and Natalie eventually move to a small farm with the help of Caleb’s father and Natalie starts her YouTube channel and builds her social media empire while birthing several more children. She adopts this all natural living style while homeschooling her children and staying isolated on her farm.

Things start to go awry when Natalie hires a young college student to help her with marketing who questions some of the realness of what Natalie has bene portraying online versus what she sees in person at the farm. One day Natalie wakes up and has time traveled to the harsh reality of an 1800s farm similar to the ideal she had portrayed online for many years. Her children are not her children, her husband is something different and the endless chores wear Natalie down. This causes a mental crisis for Natalie but I will not spoil it for you as to what happens next, just know that it is really good. So good in fact that I am going to have to read the book again since I was so enthralled I read the entire book in a day and I am sure I missed something.

It says a lot that I have not been able to find any major spoilers unmarked on Threads. Everyone seems to be waiting for the collective women of the world to read the book and come to some conclusions about their own lives and roles which is amazing. Ms. Hathaway is set to star and produce the horror film based on this article in Indie Wire. Nevertheless, Yesteryear is one of the best books I have read all year and the ending was not at all what I predicted. If you know, you know but I will not spoil it for those who have not read it yet.

I highly recommend this book to everyone to read and I can’t wait for the movie to come out!

Links:

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

Anne Hathaway Producing and Starring in Yesteryear

Reminder: Sea of Charms is coming out at the end of July and we will be doing a book club in September for it on the Cozy Oscoey channel.

Cozy Oscoey YouTube Channel

Sea of Charms by Sarah Beth Durst Preorder

This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is a book that I picked up kind of on a whim but ended up loving. I honestly don’t remember if it was a book I saw in my Amazon suggestions or if it was one of the books my daughter bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago, but wherever I found it, it definitely called to me in the strongest manner possible. It is a fabulous book that hit all of my cozy fantasy spots while having a great story. I really wish there was a bunch more books about Caz the plant and Kiela the librarian!

This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The book starts out with an overthrowing of the throne, a great library on fire and the escape of Kiela the librarian, Caz the talking plant and the crates of valuable books both have stashed away in a boat. Kiela and Caz end up far away on a small island in Kiela’s hometown. They settle into her old rundown house while hiding their top secret and forbidden selection of books. Needless to say, they have to interact with the locals and end up finding out a bunch of things about themselves along the way including the secrets of spellcasting.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! I liked it so much that I bought her second book in the series The Enchanted Greenhouse which is about Caz’s creator and preordered her newest book, Sea of Charms, which comes out in July of 2026. The story is very well written and the romance that happens is very sweet with a great backstory. I love all of the fantasy elements to the story and the true conflict of an introvert stuck in a position where they have to rely on others to make it through. The internal struggle to socialize was well felt!

Needless to say I highly recommend this book! I have already started reading The Enchanted Greenhouse and so far it is good as well. I am thinking of doing a book club reading for Sea of Charms when it comes out, maybe for August since it comes out towards the end of July. Let me know what you think about joining!

As always, I encourage readers to find books at libraries and used book shops, but if you need more information on what to find or to snag an early copy of Sea of Charms, below are some links to the books mentioned in this post.

Happy Reading!

This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Links:

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

The Enchanted Greenhouse

Sea of Charms

The end of 2025 and our first quarter trying out a personal curriculum came quicker than I though it would. I did make some progress but as I suspected, the holidays and travel got the best of me and I didn’t get through everything I had hoped I would. Luckily I just was doing a trial curriculum for this first set to see how much progress was realistic for me to complete. For fall of 2025 I did three subjects which were P.H.E, Art and French.

This site participates in affiliate links and receives a small fee for affiliate recommendations at no cost to you. As always we only recommend products we have tried ourselves. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

For Physical Health Education (P.H.E. as they call it in Canada) I did spend time outdoors, swimming and watching kids do sports but honestly I did not get as much exercise as I had hoped in this fall. Usually I spend a lot of time walking around the neighborhood but illness, weather and a lack of time meant I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I need to establish a new walking route either in my neighborhood or around the kids school so I can get back into the swing of walking. Part of this is because I am still recovering from my foot issues and every time I have walked they flare up again but really, I should be at least walking the dogs once a day for a short period and slowly build back up again. The dogs are still getting exercise mostly running around the dog park, but it is just not me that is doing the majority of the walking.

I did join the Conquerors Challenge app and am doing the Hadrian’s Wall challenge but honestly I am making huge progress on that one and ahead of my goal just with my normal step count activity so I am going to need to shorten my time length for my next challenge. If you would like to check it out my referral link is here and below under links.

Next up is my art class for fall of 2025. I did make a little bit of progress for art but with all the travel we did  I could not take my art with me. One of my goals was to use up some of my extra diamond painting drills and we did do a little work with that and diamond painted the wooden bird houses we bought but this was pretty tricky to complete with the glue I bought so we will be painting the rest of the houses with acrylic paint.

Another art goal I had was to make book covers for my notebooks I am using for my personal curriculum. Unfortunately I only got as far as marking off my blank diamond painting canvas. I am not giving up on this one yet though and may try to complete this project outside of my personal curriculum for winter quarter 2026.

Last but not least is my French class. I made significant progress in French by working on it every week and taking our tutoring lessons with Preply. Although I am frustrated with how much I forget every week, I am making progress and did get through a lot of this book even though it was difficult for me to concentrate. I did not get through any Duolingo or my short stories book but I was using fall of 2025 as a test to see what was realistic to get through in a week with this book. Going forward I think doing one to two chapters in depth every week is a much more realistic goal than what the book recommends of getting through the whole thing in 60 days. I knew going in that the premise of learning French in such a short timeline would be way to much to get through so I am glad I didn’t put too much pressure on myself to get through it. I really want to have a deep learning of French instead of a quick pump and dump course where I will forget everything once the book is put away and that takes time. If I do French outside of tutoring every week my understanding will be slow but deeper so I don’t forget as easily.

Overall I am pretty happy I decided to do a personal curriculum and make my self-education more formal. It gives me guidelines to follow, goals to achieve and keeps me on track with my learning progress. I will be working out a curriculum for 2026 in the next week or so and posting that to both the Oscoey blog and my YouTube channel @cozyoscoeyhobbies (Cozy Oscoey). Look for that in the future!

How is your personal curriculum going?

Links:

Conqueror Challenge Referral Link

Fall 2025 Personal Curriculum Wrap Up on the Cozy Oscoey Channel

Cozy Oscoey YouTube Channel

Check out our video on Cozy Oscoey: Introduction to Personal Curriculum

Preply: Get 70% off a trial lesson: Preply Trial Discount

Books:

Learn French Fast for Adult Beginners by Speak Abroad Academy

Short Stories in French for Beginners by Olly Richards

Dual Language Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Author), John Robert Loehr (Translator)

Items I Bought:

Blank Notebooks for Added Sparkle 

Blank Diamond Painting Canvases