"What Kind of Paradise" is a great coming-of-age and loss-of-innocence story. The protagonist, Jane, has grown up living off the grid with her father in a remote Montana cabin. It is a suspenseful story that keeps your attention. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys stories of fathers and daughters, coming-of-age stories, and stories of outliers. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

#WhatKindOfParadise

I had never read anything by Janelle Brown before and I can’t wait to catch up on her backlist now. Set in the 90s, this coming-of-age story about a girl raised off-the-grid by her tech-averse father is fast-paced and beautifully written. For me, it’s that perfect sweet spot of literary but still packed with plot. Jane, our main character, is an intelligent young woman struggling to come to terms with the outsize influence her father has had over her life. After she turns 18 she moves to a nascent Silicon Valley, ends up working at an early tech startup, and discovers some unsettling truths about her father and her mother. One more note: Ladies of a certain age (like myself) will appreciate all the 90s references, including Liz Phair lyrics. 🙌

Five stars! This will be a bestseller of the summer - maybe even the year. I was at the edge of my seat (okay, bed) after midnight, waiting to see what would happen next. Don't sleep on this hit!

Jane grew up living off the grid with her dad in a cabin in Montana in the 1980s and 1990s. They have no TV or internet and her dad is her everything - her teacher, her family, her friend, the only source of knowledge for her. When he brings home a laptop one day and she starts to learn what else is out there - what will happen?

I really enjoyed this story so much. I also enjoyed that Jane was telling it when she is older and was able to reflect on what was happening with her later wisdom - I appreciated this approach a lot. This was one I couldn’t wait to get back to and thought about when I wasn’t reading it. Thank you to the publisher for the free ebook to review.

This book is going to be a best seller, I have no doubt. What a fantastic story line but also so relevant to events in the past and how many people think today surrounding the internet.
Jane lives in a secluded cabin in the woods with her father. She knows no other life. Everything she learns is from her father and the text books he wants her to read and remember. But as Jane gets older she starts to question her past and present situations.
Unsure what her father is doing when he leaves her all alone for days, makes Jane request you assist him but ends up being an accomplice to his wild shenanigans.
A book of figuring out right and wrong and where your loyalty lies.

Couldn’t put it down.

What Kind of Paradise follows Jane, a teenager living with her dad in a remote cabin in Montana. He homeschools her and keeps her secluded. As she is getting older though, she is wondering more about teens her own age - how they live, and what future she wants to have. As the book goes on, we find out more about her and her dad’s background and what he was doing before he moved them to Montana. 🤔

I was super invested in this book every step of the way. This book takes place in the 90’s, which offers some early Internet nostalgia, but also offers a reason for why Jane can’t just look up things she desires to know online.

When I got into reading this e-ARC, I didn’t realize the overall message would be what it was… but it’s certainly a good one to ponder in our current technology age. (I’m not telling you what the question is, so you can find out yourself as you read the book!)

I think the only thing holding me back from a 5⭐️ review is that I didn’t feel as emotionally invested in the characters as I usually am for 5⭐️ books (though I do just want the best for Jane!) However, it’s still a super good book. And I’d recommend reading it, especially if it’s offered in one of the June book boxes. I could see it being a hit when it comes out on June 3rd.

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐️

Thanks to Net Galley and PRH for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Having read three other book by this author, I think she’s more “ok” for me than “wow”. I know I’m in the minority with my feelings about this book, but it was slow and I had a hard time with the extreme thoughts/beliefs; it made it hard for me to connect to the story and characters. Some parts were better, I enjoyed the character connection, the experiences and the growing. Overall this was a decent read, but will not be in my top reads.
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Thank you NetGalley and Random House for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

The premise was interesting and the characters were intriguing, but the first half of the book was so slow that I almost didn't finish. The pace picked up a little in the second half but still not what i would call a page turner. This one just didn't grab me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advanced reader copy.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I believe I was invited to read this title by the publisher. Janelle Brown is a favorite author of mine in the way she tells stories. It's never too long or too short. I honestly could not predict what would happen at any given moment, which is what had me on the edge of my seat, needing to get back to this book. I have to warn you that you may experience feelings of sadness at the end - not just that you finished a remarkable book but sadness for the narrator/ main character. Without giving it away, the reason.

This book is mainly set in 1996-1997. I was just a little older than the main character, - "Jane", who lived with her father in an isolated cabin in the woods in Montana. Her dad would go away for a few days and return later with supplies. It is definitely something sketchy that he is hiding.

When Jane discovers her life is a lie, she doesn't take immediate action. She ropes herself into becoming an accomplice in something she doesn't understand at first. Even though she's brilliant and very smart, she is sheltered. The story is a little slow until she leaves for San Francisco and then really takes off. I liked her friendship with Lionel and the misfits she met at Signal. I appreciate the cultural references as well. "Jane" is trying to balance her curiosity about the world and the internet with her more simple upbringing. Not to mention her ethics.

When Jane discovers that her dad had lied to her about someone major in her life who had died, she looks for that person. I was hurting for her because what she sought vs. reality was a stark difference. I don't know if Jane's life would have been different if her father had made other choices. She was put in an impossible situation with no family support. She never really got justice and was a victim of her father's paranoid delusions, as well as selfishness and ego.

one thing for sure I will be thinking about this book for a long time. In a small way, it reminded me of The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, one of my favorite books ever. 5/5 ☆ available June 10th.

Set in the late 90's, 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞 starts off with Jane and her strange father living in a shack in the woods in Montana. Jane, at 17, knows no one except her father, and has near no contact without the outside world. Jane believes her mother died in a terrible car accident, and her father has filled her full of his strange political ideas of the dangers of the technological world.

Her father brings a computer into their home for the very first time and asks Jane to learn HTML so he can publish his “manifesto.” This first exposure to the outside world gets Jane asking some very difficult questions about who her father is and what her background is. I won't give any other spoilers, but once Jane is exposed to the outside world, she starts to question everything.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐞 is a more literary thriller with deep, thought provoking questions about our society and the positives and negatives of technology. I also think touches on some interesting themes that the reader is left to ponder such as healthy parent/child relationships, how we process information and determine what is true or not, where the line is between mental illness and sociopathy, and so much more.

I will say that this is not a page turning thriller in my opinion - it borders more on literary suspense or even a suspenseful drama is more accurate. I found Jane a very interesting and compelling character - her experiences growing up and then coming of age after being so sheltered pose many thought provoking situations. I loved the way the ending unfolded.

Jane is very much a product of her father’s upbringing. She forgives sketchy behavior when she shouldn’t, because she’s brainwashed. Her father has spent her life gaslighting her. He’s pushed his ideals on her, under the guise of homeschooling.

This has made her incredibly naïve. So it was nice when she finally starts making decisions for herself. I didn’t agree with all those decisions, but I don’t need to because they all stem back to the way she was raised.

I really enjoyed this one as it is a captivating read.

This was an unusual story that grabbed my interest right away. I was surprised and then hooked on the mysterious circumstances of the protagonists' situation as an isolated daughter living with her father in the Montana woods since she was just a toddler.

As Jane grows older and starts wondering and trying to figure things out, realizing that the truth was far different from what her father had told her, we keep her company on her journey into the 'real' world as she grows into her own person but with something missing - knowing what really happened to her mother who she had thought was dead. The mystery and suspense propelled me forward.

The whole technology thing was interesting, particularly from a historical perspective, but it does get a little weird. I enjoyed the read quite a lot and want to thank NetGalley, Random House, and the author for allowing me to read an early eARC before the book is published. Look for it on June 3, 2025.

This is a very different book than I usually read. I father daughter living off the grid with the father's very obscured views of the world. This read as more of a drama than a suspense. At times the pacing is a little slow, but overall a great story.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book was one of my most highly anticipated reads for this summer and it lived up to expectations. While it started off slowly, the middle and end more than made up for the slow beginning.

Jane lived a secluded life in a Montana cabin with her father. He's her whole world. She barely ever leaves their cabin - her father is even homeschooling her - and she doesn't have much interaction with the outside world. Her father doesn't share much about their past and all she knows in that her mother died in a car accident. But as Jane gets older and reaches her teenage years, she wants to see the world beyond their cabin. She accompanies her father on one of his many trips and soon becomes an accomplice to a horrible crime. From there, Jane must make the difficult choice to either follow her father's wishes or learn more about her childhood and her mother. This leads her to San Francisco at the height of technology advancement.

This book was an interesting take on the technology revolution and brought me back to learning about computers and trying the internet for the first time. This was juxtaposed with Jane's story and learning to navigate the real world for the first time. She lived such a sheltered life, so strangers and public transportation were new experiences for her. I enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes, even though it was difficult at times. If you like a mix of historical fiction blended with a slow burn suspense, then this book might be for you.

Thank you to Random House for the opportunity to read and review.

What Kind of Paradise is a well-crafted suspense thriller and cautionary tale in one. The suspense comes as Jane, who has lived in a remote cabin in Montana for most of her life with her father, finds out her life is a lie at the same time she finds out she may be implicated in crimes he has committed. The cautionary tale plays out as a debate between people like Jane's father, who believes that computer technology will lead to all sorts of horrible societal problems, and people who are working at the cutting edge of that technology in the San Francisco Bay Area, and who believe in its worth to change society for the better.

The high stakes drama keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. Jane escapes from her father, but is constantly terrified that she will be discovered, either by him or the FBI. Knowing her father has lied to her about her upbringing, she also goes on a quest to find her mother who may or may not be alive, and to try and warn people who might be in line to be her father's next victims.

I read this book in two sittings, as the pages just seemed to turn themselves. It was a real treat to read a thriller that had as much intellectual substance as suspense. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author.. Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

WOW. This book blew me away. A father and daughter living off the grid in a remote part of Montana. The father indoctrinates the daughter to his wild beliefs about government and technology. But as the daughter ages, he starts to lose his grip. Then he comes up with a plan to act on his beliefs and drags his daughter into it. Things go horribly wrong and secrets come to light. The daughter must choose between the only life she's ever known and the freedom she craves.

Jane was never supposed to question anything. All of her life came pre-packaged by her dad, Saul. A philosopher, survivalist, editor of a self-published manifesto zine called "Libertaire," and the man who raised her deep in the Montana wilderness with a bunker mentality and a god complex. According to him, the world is crumbling. "The Feds" are always watching. Technology is a disease. And college? That’s for indoctrinated sheep. She didn’t need a classroom. She had Saul. A “Harvard education,” he promised, without the debt or the lies.

What she didn’t have: freedom. Friends. Basic social knowledge. Hell, she didn’t even get full access to their tiny cabin. Saul’s office was locked. Jane only got glimpses when Saul left on his multi-day “errands” delivering "Libertaire" across the state. And what she found looked less like the story she’d been told and more like a mystery she was never meant to solve. A picture of her father, young and clean-shaven. A photograph of a woman holding a toddler who looked suspiciously like Jane. Her mother was supposed to be dead. Except... what if she wasn’t?

It’s the mid-1990s. Jane’s seventeen. She’s smart. And she’s starting to see the holes in the ideology she was raised to memorize.

Saul says they don’t need a TV. But he has one. Locked away. He claims it’s for “research,” to track the lies the world is spinning so he can use it to write his articles. Jane isn’t supposed to watch. But she learns to pick locks. And one night, while he’s gone, she discovers "The X-Files." It’s grainy and strange and full of coded messages about truth and lies and monsters who look a lot like authority figures. In other words, it speaks fluent Saul. But it doesn’t reinforce him. It makes her question him.

Then, against his own teachings, he brings home "Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week" and a computer. She doesn’t even really know what the internet is, but within five days, she’s built a website. It becomes the online headquarters of Saul’s manifesto. She’s gone from student to assistant. From daughter to data processor. And when she asks to join him on one of his “errands,” it’s with one goal in mind: to run away from him.

But she doesn’t know the plan has changed. She’s not just there. She’s part of it. A distraction while Saul carries out an attack that makes them fugitives overnight. Jane follows the escape protocol like she’s been trained to. Until she doesn’t.

Because her name’s not Jane. And she’s not seventeen. Everything about her life, from her past to her birth certificate, is a lie.

So she runs. Alone. Armed with nothing but a duffel full of questionable cash, a cracked understanding of the world, and a growing suspicion that her mother might be alive. Her destination: San Francisco. The city her father once called the beginning of the end, where dot-com dreams go to die and the digital age was born. If Saul thinks it’s evil, it might be where the truth lives.

The second half of "What Kind of Paradise" is a gritty, slow-burning metamorphosis. Jane doesn’t blossom. She claws her way out. She learns how to navigate a world she was taught to fear. How to interact with people who don’t speak in manifestos. How to survive without being told who she is. She finds a job. A tiny space to live. A person who makes her feel safe enough to let her guard down. She also learns that life doesn’t get easier just because you’ve left the cabin.

This isn’t a thriller, exactly. It’s a reckoning. Jane isn’t escaping the cabin. She’s untangling herself from a man whose belief system burned everything down. Saul didn’t raise her to survive the apocalypse. He was the apocalypse. And this is the story of what happens when the dust settles and the daughter is the one left behind to make sense of the fallout.

Janelle Brown doesn’t write easy heroes or cartoon villains. Saul isn’t some foaming technophobe. He’s brilliant. He’s terrifying. Jane is smart, but her power is different. She doesn’t burn. She builds. And it hurts. And it’s slow. But you root for her like your life depends on it.

There’s no big twist that makes it all click into place. No satisfying “gotcha.” What you get is something raw and devastating: a girl taking control of a story that was never hers to begin with and rewriting it in real time. Deeply intelligent, emotionally feral, and quietly original. It doesn’t shout. It lingers. And for that, it earns a scorching 4.5 stars.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the ARC and the spiral into mid-'90s moral chaos. I came for the manifesto and paranoia, stayed for the start of the dot-com bubble, and left questioning what we owe to the people who raise us — and what we risk by walking away.

This was more of a drama/mystery and less of a thriller due to the pacing, but I was deeply invested in the story.. I enjoyed the characters and the nineties throwback. The middle seemed to drag a bit but I was hooked in the beginning and found the ending to be satisfying. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital copy.

What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown focuses on Jane and sheds light on how technology and mental problems reallllllyyyy don’t mix. There’s a very fine line between being mentally ill and being incredibly intelligent in this and Brown had me wavering for a time trying to figure out which was the case here. I was unable to stop reading and felt myself tense up anytime Jane’s dad was on the page. I loved the end and when I finished this, I immediately added it to my list of faves for the year.

Somewhere between a 2.5-3 stars. Unfortunately this read just wasn’t for me. I think it should be clear this is not necessarily a thriller but more of a “coming of age” and general fiction/domestic drama. I was initially pulled in based on the description of this book but unfortunately the first half was just so slooow and I couldn’t pick it up! I really think the plot here is strong and such an interesting story but it was dragged out and could have drawn me in more otherwise. The MC Jane felt somewhat repetitive in her mistakes which drove me crazy. Lastly, the author is so well versed in her large vocabulary but it was really hard for me to follow and the flow was a bit overwhelming.