The book might be maddeningly lacking in rigor, but it is also the most-talked-about novel of the year. I’m certainly not arguing that popularity is necessarily an indicator of quality, but I think it would also be a mistake to dismiss readers of popular works as unsophisticated themselves simply because the texts are not particularly deep. Because while Burke may not deliver on her promise to answer or even explore them, the questions “Yesteryear” poses are anything but shallow: What is the role of men — fathers, sons, husbands — in women’s lives? What is freedom? What is authenticity? These questions and the conversations the book has ignited, overwhelmingly among women, are evidence that unsophisticated but enjoyable stories can still play an important role in our culture.