Natalie Heller Mills is an alt right Christian nationalist, who finds her footing on social media as a “tradwife.” From humble means, Natalie is hellbent on securing a better life. Ecstatic to get into an Ivy League school, she’s disappointed that she doesn’t fit in with the other women, feminists. Everything falls into place when Natalie joins a church club, where she meets and starts dating Caleb Mills. Marrying into his rich, political family, she discovers far, far too late that Caleb is a product of his environment in the worst way. The coddled, mediocre baby of the family, who lacks ambition due to the safety net of generational wealth. Determined to best her feminist opps, Natalie won’t settle for a ho-hum life. She makes her trad lifestyle seem as authentic as possible to her followers & haters alike: tending to chickens, baking bread from scratch, farming for a living. One day she wakes up in the same place, different time period, as an actual tradwife.
It took me time to process this book. Wow, what was that? I thought at the end. The plot twist was twisting. Unfortunately what happened to Natalie could easily be a true story. We’ve seen similar situations regarding conniving, hypocritical, bigoted, religious white women in real life. A lot of people compared the story to Ballerina Farm, personally it reminded me of Ruby Franke. Those who took offense to the satire did so because it hit too close to home. Taking it as a critic of their moral values, which tend to be hateful and cherry picked to their liking. Apt af, look at Donald Trump’s administration- Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt, Nancy Mace, Amy Coney Barrett, to name a few. Wearing crosses, praying, going to church while simultaneously vitriolic, consumed by greed, hurting the poor, hoarding wealth, abusing children by cutting off their food supply to sexual assault, and everything in between, including prostituting them. Their actions not at all aligned with the virtues they preach. Caro Claire Burke is a white woman holding other white women accountable. They enable and perpetuate systems of racism and misogyny for profit, cutting their noses to spite their faces. If you don’t like what you see, it’s on you. Learn to practice what you preach instead of chasing that dollar by any means necessary. “Love of money is the root of all evil”- 1 Timothy 6:10. Memorizing entire scriptures to put others down, except for that one huh? Via: Penguin Random House
