This was a chilling, worrying and enlightening book on growing up in an abusive, neglectful environment. I was stunned that the mother went along with all of it, but given the effects of domestic abuse, it does make sense. While on the surface, the father claimed this was to do the best for his family, the reality was that the author and his siblings and mother were put in a horrible situation.
It was a harrowing read.
I received a copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher for an honest, unbiased review.

Beautiful Prison is a story of family suffering from domestic abuse by a manipulative and abusive father who isolates his family into the wild untamed Idahoan Mountains. The incredible true story portrays the lessons learned through the eyes of childhood emotional neglect from an emotionally immature parent and how eight siblings who survived an unspeakable childhood found the road back from surviving the forest.

One mother discovers all that's wrong with the spiral of toxic events which led to the ultimate survival of her children and why a meaningful life is not supposed to be this way. Running on empty, she learned how to stop doubting and do what it takes to reverse childhood adversity and promote self healing through self-discovery.

This book was an interesting memoir to read. It was emotional in places. You can sense the author's passion in this book and it was very informative.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I think the title perfectly reflects what happened to this family on an isolated mountain in Idaho. When a father takes the family to a remote mountain in Idaho to avoid issues/people from his life catching up with him and holding him accountable, (including a prior wife and children), it does become a ‘beautiful prison’ for the author who finds beauty in the midst of an abusive, neglectful homelife/lifestyle created by his father. The author describes himself as“…a hostage taken captive by my very own father," and there is a lot of symbolism in the book as it relates to nature and human-nature: The mountain itself, the father's desire to 'pan for gold', the treatment of the animals on the property, and more.
In their new mountain home with no electricity, hardly any food to eat, no toilet, no baths or showers for months, no proper healthcare, no extended family or true friends, and the harsh, rough winters of Idaho, this large family with mostly young children has to figure out how to cope and survive. The mother, who is smart and caring, seems to have ‘given in’ to the father’s unpredictable behaviour until she ultimately makes the decision to change and save herself and her family from the life they are in. Though it took her almost twenty years, it is a relief when she finally makes the decision to no longer allow her life, or the life of her children, to be lived in the same way.
During the three years that the author lived on the mountain, he read extensively, receiving much of his home-school education from books and authors, and I liked how throughout the book the author refers to literature and writing to further his point. The book is inspirational and full of positive messages even though the story itself has undertones of darkness, sadness, neglect, and abuse, and I really like how the author found positive life lessons from such a harsh situation.

i really enjoyed going on through this journey, this was a great memoir and I really felt for the author and his family.

Very heartbreaking story! I can imagine this would have been very difficult to relive as he wrote this, but I am grateful he did. I hope that sharing his story has brought some healing. I do feel as though it could have been edited better, some parts didn't quite flow as well as I would have liked.

A memoir of Michael’s childhood growing up on a remote and isolated mountain with no water or electricity. It also explores Michael’s relationship with his parents following this.

Michael’s childhood was obviously harsh and traumatic, and this has caused him issues in his later years.

Despite this I felt the narrative jumped about too much leaving it very jarring to the reader. There was also a lot of foreshadowing, particularly in the first quarter, which became a bit much.

There was some beautiful nature writing, but the overall writing style of the book was not great.

Review copy provided by NetGalley

What a freaking crazy story. Imagine being a child trapped in nature but isolation. With someone who the town perceived as a crazy and out of control parent. And when you look back you realize it was a very abusive time. This was a painfully beautiful story and was very well written. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book is the kind of memoir that I love so I was very pleased to have been approved. It very much reminded me of "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls. It starts out with our main character being forced by his father to live with the rest of the family off the grid in the wild. I found it strange right off the bat that the mother would agree to take her family up in the middle of nowhere when it was clear that she didn't like that idea but for some reason she agreed. It was terrible to read about how Michael's father knew nothing about farming, hunting or living off the land and even when they had the supplies they didn't have the knowledge to make them work. It was terribly
sad. I can't imagine someone putting their family through all of that pain and suffering when it seems that the only reason it was done in the first place was so the father can say that he was doing his best for them family, when in actuality he was doing far from it. What was nice about this read was you do hear about his family starting to make things work if not just out of necessity, but you could feel the longing behind all of the words. This was a great read and I'm very glad that I had the opportunity to read it. For anyone who likes memoirs or books about exploring that this is one that you won't want to miss.

I thought this book would be like Educated but it fell short. I appreciated the courage to tell the story but it seemed like a lot was left out. The timeline and pacing were confusing as well. There was so much foreshadowing that never went anywhere. This book has potential but could stand a few more rounds of editing

I had so many issues with this book and the author.
First, it sounds like all of his rage and his anger was directed at his father...yet he says that his dad is still great in his heart. He remembers his dad so fondly. Yet places the blame of his life at his dad's feet. Not his moms. just his dad gets his wrath.
Second, the mountain was NOT a prison. A social worker came, they had friends, Jim Hensen, etc that if it was seriously that bad, they could have told someone.
Third, it wasn't that bad. I know the author believes that he had a horrible, no good childhood, the truth of the matter is EVERYONE HAS A CRAPPY Childhood.
Just because the authors father took him to a mountain and had him live is no reason for this book.
There are no dates, no time periods in this book.
Just complete and utter whining of how much he had to work to get warmth from logs he cut down.
wow, just wow, this book is a grown man complaining about a childhood that wasn't that bad.
The title is misleading, there was NO isolation, there was no abuse, there was no neglect. This author is seriously messed up in the head to think that anything like that happened.

I was looking forward to reading this book as it held promise – sadly, a promise that was not fulfilled. This is not to detract from Mr Lechner’s horrific experiences which were evident if not explicit but reading was in itself a trial. The development of the story was sketchy and did not appear to be chronological and on the whole felt like a rambling of disparate strands. The neglect that was suffered, the sheer hardship of the unrelenting bleakness of their existence was not off-set with the beauty of the mountain. Sounds like hell to me!

At the core there is the essence of a biography – but it just feels disconnected, and a tad self-indulgent, particularly the last 20% - which in all honesty was just plain boring.

To be fair, I read it all (except for the last section where I skipped sections that were excerpts) because I did want to do justice to the author’s efforts.

Cannot recommend it – as it is not to my taste but I applaud the author and wish him well.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

I always feel weird reviewing a memoir because how do you rate a person's memories? But that's not the point. I'm not rating Michael Lechner's life, it was sad and tragic, but I've finished reading it without really knowing what him and his family have been through.

Lechner tells us how his father decided to move to Idaho and buy a land on a mountain, but it seems like he never goes past that. During the first pages, most of the first part, telling how they were going to live in a mountain but they didn't know what they would go through. The phrase "little did I know the turn my life was about to take", or similar, was used so many times it made it seemed like I was reading the same part over and over. And that's a problem with this book as a whole.

The book doesn't seem to have a direction, it's all over the place, saying something and then saying the same thing using other words, it would talk about something and a few paragraphs later would come back to explain how that something would come to happen. In other words it seems like the book is lacking an editor.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
There seems to be a recent "trend" of books about dysfunctional families living off the grid. And Idaho seems to be one of the "best" state to live rural. (I live in Idaho and I absolutely love our mountains!)
This book isn't the most well written book and I wish he would've gone into more detail about certain aspects of his childhood and adolescence but I did enjoy reading this. Especially the parts where he talked about how strong and determined his mother was after she left his father. I hope writing this book was a healing experience for the author.

While this is a tragic story the writing could have been so much better. Things were all over the place. The author didn't go into detail about anything. Too much was left out. While the things they suffered were awful, I expected more detail about why and how they effected them. This story had so much potential, but sadly fell flat.

Sadly this story just isn’t quite ready to be a book yet. Apart from a middle section of around 40-60% the book is disorganised and has no direction, flow or chronology. That middle section was what kept me from giving up on the book altogether as it finally did seem to be telling the story in a clearly defined way.
Quite apart from the jumping around all over the place I’m not sure that the time line is entirely accurate. One of the young children, I’m sure he said the youngest was 11 when their mother died. When their mother died the children were living with the author. But then they have to live with brother Greg because the author is in the navy. He is in the navy for 8 years but also seems to refer to his siblings still being young adults living at home with Greg after he is demobbed. But the youngest child would be 19 by then...
The author also refers to having a wife and her learning about his childhood from his brother Greg. Then in the present day he refers to having a fiancé, the first woman he’s found love with. So is there an ex wife? Or is he referring to his fiancé as his wife? Other errors that should have been picked up in the editing process include the author referring to his fathers children from a previous marriage as his step-siblings. Step children are not biologically related but are brought together when their parents marry. These are the authors half siblings as they share a biological father.
I know that the author loves reading and I’m glad this helped him through his childhood but the incessant and far too long quotations are really distracting.
We only know the author had an horrific childhood because he tells us. “Growing up so badly neglected” “My father’s abuse” are the types of oft repeated phrases but there is never any detail or flesh added to their bones. Clearly it was going to be horrific as they had no plumbing, heating or food but we read memoirs because we want to hear what it was actually like. There is a horrifying scene where their father beats Greg senseless. But just as we want to know what happened afterwards? How did their father behave? What did Greg say about it to his siblings? Did it change the way their Mother kept them apart from their father? Nothing. A new quote from a novel and more reminders that they could never chop enough wood and the goats weren’t meat animals, they were milkers (this is one of many things the author mentions far more times than the reader needs to hear).
With some direction, a ghost writer maybe or a very strict content editor this story could have been compelling. As it is, it just isn’t ready.

This was definitely an interesting read and very eye-opening. I loved the ending and what Michael had to say about his mother and father.

This is a similar book to Educated by Tara Westover. A family lives off the grid on a Mountain. This book lacked details for me. I think it would have benefited from a clearer timeline with dates added in.