Yesteryear with Caro Claire Burke | Trad Wives, Secret Lives & Twist Ending (Spoilers)
Release Date: 04/09/2026
The Bore Ultimatum (feat. Nora and Caroline)
Be There in Five
This week (for ep 2), Kate is joined by friends of the pod, Nora McInerny and Caroline Moss, for a group hang that begins with scorpions in Nora's laundry and only escalates from there. The three of them get into the perils of too many fourth-wall breaks on House of Stassi and the collective decline of reality TV, then Kate debuts a best friend game where everyone gets assigned a day of the week and a breakfast cereal, and unveils her own Catholic corner featuring Saint Magnus, certified babe. Also on the docket: the Berenstain Bears, Jen Hamilton and "meemaw," Nora's domestic era, a live...
info_outline
Coaches Coaching Brooches
Be There in Five
This week, Kate asks an important question for the sake of equality in the workplace: can a woman carry two bags and be taken seriously? Can her bracelets clank? Jury's out, and she felt inspired to take on the genre of body language coaching and weird advice people give women about how to behave. Then, she opens the floor to the Beths, who deliver a cornucopia of workplace advice: lower your register, fix your vocal fry, no jingly earrings, no hair tie on your wrist, no mouse in the meeting, etc. Kate also revisits the letter grade she lost in college for bending over to plug in her laptop,...
info_outline
WE NEVER STOOD A CHANCE (Parenting Edition)
Be There in Five
This week, the air quality is apocalyptic, parents everywhere are staring down the summer childcare cliff, and Kate is feeling pro-tantrum.. What starts as a meditation on the summers of yore turns into one on modern parenting and why we never stood a chance. Through a mix of personal stories and listener submissions, this episode gets into the Nature Valley bars of motherhood (things that are structurally designed to crumble no matter what you do), and Kate unpacks why the U.S. treats raising the next generation of taxpayers as a private, elective hobby, and why calling motherhood...
info_outline
Cannes Debrief, MSG, and Celebs Making Out at the Heath (with Sami Sage)
Be There in Five
This week, Kate briefly debriefs her week at Cannes Lions during a record-breaking heat wave, including how she accidentally hired a private French bodyguard in an armored Maybach, sweat off her spray tan across the Côte d'Azur, and what it's like to be at Coachella for vague marketing babes without AC when your brain is so fried you give the AC repairman the wrong room number and it stays broken. Then Sami Sage (co-founder of Betches, host of the Morning Announcements) joins for a catch-up covering the lead up to Taylor and Travis's MSG wedding, Joe Alwyn and Sarah Pidgeon making out at...
info_outline
It's Like Our Sleepover (with Anna Konkle)
Be There in Five
This week, Kate chats with PEN15 co-creator Anna Konkle for a conversation that’s equal parts silly and heavy, like the last two people awake at a sleepover asking about the meaning of life and swapping stories of their first thong. They discuss Anna’s new memoir, The Sane One, and how it explores a different kind of nostalgia than her previous work, touching on topics like the grief, estrangement, and reconciliation that anchor the book, hand-slapping games like Miss Mary Mack, the kind of love for your child that’s so pure it almost scares you, and what it was like to be chosen as...
info_outline
Madison Square Jargon
Be There in Five
This week, Kate meanders through "I Knew It, I Knew You" and the Toy Story 5 premiere, why she's changed her tune on the rumored Madison Square Garden wedding venue, and goes on various passionate detours about golf, a dramatic reading of Luke Bryan's "Fish Hunt Golf Drink," and digs through a moldy pouch of 2019 Post-it topics that yields takes on Ariel Charnas, Caroline Calloway, City High, Yikes pencils, and middle school cool-girl names. Enjoy! SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS Order Kate's NYT Bestselling book, One in a Millennial ! Text or leave a voicemail for Kate at 775-HEY-BETH! Thank you...
info_outline
Be Good, Not Well
Be There in Five
This week, it's just Kate, an Aperol Spritz, and the tech bro quote about wine that accidentally kicked off the conversation we've all been needing about optimization culture and being tired of treating every part of life like a performance review. Plus, a round of News You Can Use about why fruit hasn't been sweet since 1996, this season's hottest mnemonic devices, the babydoll dress of it all, and reviewing what Olivia Rodrigo is doing differently in Drop Dead and The Cure, all of it strangely circling back to living in a world that quantifies us without letting the number become the whole...
info_outline
False Paternity, 14 Felonies, and a Former Bachelor: Stephani Young on Love Trapped
Be There in Five
This week, Kate sits down with Stephani Young, the journalist (and longtime Beth!) behind the viral investigative podcast Love Trapped, the year-plus deep dive into the Clayton Echard paternity scandal that turned out to be so much bigger than a Bachelor Nation headline. Kate opens with why a story like this is so culturally tricky to talk about and the tension between believing women and recognizing when the systems built to protect them get weaponized. Then Kate and Stephani get into how the story spans not just Clayton but a years-long pattern involving multiple men that ultimately led to...
info_outline
1998 (feat. Caroline Moss)
Be There in Five
This week, Kate is joined by Caroline Moss for an episode that was supposed to be about modern pop culture and somehow turned into mostly topics from 1998. They get into the longevity industrial complex and Kate's pitch for an old-age commune, the unhinged Duggar honeymoon prep CD, Lydia and Zach's definition of "naughty," and a Full House deep dive featuring Stephanie's catering arc and Hot Daddy and the Monkey Puppets. Caroline also tells a crazy true story of her fifth grade graduation, where a major celeb showed up in leather pants and every parent in town gaslit their children about it...
info_outline
DZ: Discovery Zone (BTI5 Live Practice)
Be There in Five
This week, Kate is trying something new by returning to her old form. After taking time off and noticing her comment section brain rot, she's trying to get back to occasional one-pass, no-edits, no-looking-things-up format to practice for a live format of the show coming soon. It's the kind of episode where Reneesme, Billie Eilish, Five Below, and the Epstein files all somehow end up in the same conversation and it almost tracks. Also, some musing about the discomfort of realizing the millennial girlhood pipeline of Limited Too to Abercrombie to Victoria's Secret was built and run by men who...
info_outlineThis week, Kate sits down with Caro Claire Burke, author of the hit debut novel Yesteryear, the trad wife time travel thriller that triggered a publishing bidding war, has already been optioned by Anne Hathaway, and is Good Morning America's April book club pick. They discuss a variety of topics within the book (with spoilers, FYI), including how you write an unreliable narrator whose worldview fundamentally opposes your own, the layers of performance that start with God and end with the algorithm, why Natalie is deserving of sympathy as both a victim and a bad person, the Ballerina Farm and Ruby Franke parallels, Caleb as a vacant vessel, why the twist ending had Kate pacing at 2 AM rethinking her life choices, and how the epilogue reframes everything. They also detour into Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and the Taylor Frankie Paul of it all, plus sleepover discourse against Caro's will, how they both relate to Natalie's experience with being publicly perceived, and Caro's experience selling the book and film rights before the book was even finished. Spoilers throughout. Enjoy!
**Watch on Spotify. Spotify Premium users get no commercial breaks on my show!**
Order Kate's NYT Bestselling book, One in a Millennial here!
Text or leave a voicemail for Kate at 775-HEY-BETH!
TIMESTAMPS (SPOILERS BELOW):
0:00 Intro, Kate's reaction to Yesteryear
17:30 Interview begins, creating Natalie's voice, writing an unlikable unreliable narrator
22:00 Layers of performance: God, family, social media, the surveillance of being watched your whole life
35:00 Ballerina Farm, Ruby Franke, who Natalie is based on, how much influence trad wives actually have
47:30 Caleb and the manosphere, the breeding contract, selling a trad wife novel when everyone thought Kamala was going to win
55:00 The liberal feminist case for the trad wife, the failure of lean-in feminism, women sharing survival tips
1:01:00 The ending explained: the twist, the psychosis, what's real, and the epilogue
1:21:00 The meta conversation: parasocial relationships, being a public person, deification to dehumanization
1:28:00 Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Taylor Frankie Paul, justice for Whitney, Connor vs. Zach
1:58:00 Anne Hathaway, how book-to-movie deals actually work, and what Caro wants readers to walk away with
This Mother's Day, give the gift that shows up every single night. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code BETHEREINFIVEBOGO for an exclusive Buy One, Give One offer running from April 12th to April 18th on sheet sets and if you get a post-purchase survey, mention you heard about Cozy Earth here. For the person who makes everywhere feel like home.
For a limited time get 40% off your first order PLUS get a free item in every box for life. Go to Hungryroot.com/bethereinfive and use code bethereinfive. That’s Hungryroot.com/bethereinfive, code bethereinfive to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life.
Refresh your spring wardrobe with Quince. Go to Quince.com/bethereinfive for free shipping and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. Go to Quince.com/bethereinfive for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com/bethereinfive.
Instead of striving for perfect health, aim for supporting foundational health. Save 25% on your first month at Ritual.com/BETHEREINFIVE. That’s Ritual.com/BETHEREINFIVE for 25% off your first month.
Way Day is THE sale to shop the best deals in home – we’re talking up to 80% OFF with fast and FREE shipping on everything! Head to Wayfair.com April 25th through the 27th to shop Way Day. That’ Wayfair.com. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.
KEYWORDS: Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke, Yesteryear book review, Yesteryear ending explained, Yesteryear spoilers, trad wife novel, Yesteryear book club discussion, ballerina farm, Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, Anne Hathaway Yesteryear movie, Diabolical Lies podcast, trad wife discourse, BookTok, GMA book club April