A really unique coming of age story, mixed in with some historical fiction and lots of thought provoking moments. Written more like a mystery that slowly unfolds. The whole premise was fascinating and I really enjoyed uncovering more and more as I went. I was a little disappointed that the ending seemed to happen so quickly.

I wish it would have had more of the story from basically age 18 to roughly 35? It was summarized up in just a quick few paragraphs which was disappointing since so much of her earlier years were so detailed.

Jane Williams has never known any other life than the one she has led in a Montana cabin with her father Saul, since she was four years old. They hunt, chop wood and live off the grid, but for a phone line he installed for emergencies, they have little to no contact with the outside world. Jane is homeschooled which means she hunts, chops wood and learns anything her father is in the mood to teach. With three Harvard degrees it could be any subject in science, history or philosophy. Jane is also a whiz at math. As Jane becomes a teenager her father’s mysterious ways shine a light on all the things they are missing. She accompanies him into town to get supplies and befriends a girl in the bookstore. Jane begins to wonder about other young people her age, what they do and what they think. She is an avid reader and gleans what life could be like through books. Jane begins to explore his locked office when he is not at home. She is confused by a photo of her supposedly dead mother as the back inscription has a different name. Saul becomes more withdrawn and his rants about technology worsen, he truly believes modern society is being destroyed. Jane begins to devise a plan, partly to find proof of her mother’s death and more specifically to escape the precious cocoon that has become a trap. A fine line between what the internet can do for our world and the dangers of our addiction to even the simplest devices. Mesmerizing doomsday peek at an intimate father daughter relationship and the impact of technology.

What a ride…
I devoured this story of teenage Jane, raised by her father Saul …off grid in Bozeman, Montana in a 700 ft cabin.
Jane is home schooled and kept isolated, has lived there with her dad since she was four after her mother died.
Saul wanted to keep her away from technology.. he believed that it would enslave humanity… tethering people to their screens.
He has schooled Jane well, she has read everything, and likes to draw, very intelligent.
Being a teenager now, Jane wants to experience the world outside and finds a way out.. helps her dad in an endeavor which goes terribly wrong ..
Well, this story ends up being a real mix of coming of age, thriller, family loss, self discovery.

Note… the author said that Saul was loosely inspired by the Unabomber!

Big thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing group for the free digital copy in exchange for my honest review!

What Kind of Paradise is set at the time that the internet was really starting to become accessible to the masses. The main character's father had a past with working in the technology sector and went off the deep end and left everything behind, moving his young daughter and himself to rural Montana and living off the grid as much as possible.

As the years pass, the internet really starts to take off and the father gets more and more paranoid in his beliefs. His daughter, now a teen, is starting to wonder if her father really is right or if there is more out there than what he believes to be true.

I found this one to be a bit slow moving in the middle after getting intrigued by the plot in the beginning. Some of it was hard to wrap my head around, but then I had to remind myself how just because certain things that happened in this book wouldn't even remotely fly in today's world, that back then, things were a lot easier to get around and there was a lot less suspicion as a whole.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, but I could see how some might feel a little letdown by it if promoted as a thriller since it does move at a slower pace than one would want with that genre.

This book has some great elements. Jane is a teenage girl living off the grid with her father in Montana who starts to question everything she has been lead to believe. Told that her mother died in a car crash when she was 4, Jane has only had her dad to show her to ways of his world. The story opens with modern day Jane living a quiet life until someone forces her to remember her past. The rest of the book is set in the 90's at the time when the internet was new and tech was booming. Jane insists on traveling with her father on own of his trips and ends up being an accomplice to a horrific crime. This crime sets her on a path to San Francisco to find out what really happened to her mother.

Janelle Brown's writing is always strong and her characters compelling. Jane felt somewhat stunted in her emotions and behaviors but I attributed that to her upbringing and lack of interaction with the world and others. There was definite suspense as the story was doled out, both from the events in Jane's life but also the setting of the computer era really taking off. Conspiracy theories, radicalism, and isolation are themes in this book and I think the author did a great job of bringing you into Jane's small, but rapidly expanding, world.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

Omg!!! Probably going to be my fave of the month. This book had everything, family drama, conspiracy theorist/radicals, tech, y2k era vibes…. I loved the way the story was told, the twists and turns. It was surprising and I didn’t really expect it to go where it went. I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one.

Wow. I was not expecting this. Loosely, based on the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, this story sheds light on extreme paranoia and isolation. There are so many surprising themes covered in this book. I enjoyed this. It's also so different from what is out there. I love reading suspense in such a different way. Thank you, NetGalley!

The new releases this year have been so so good and What Kind of Paradise does not disappoint. This book hooked me from the first page and never let me go until the last word.
I thought this book was going to be a wilderness survivalist story but it was really nothing like that. This book tells the story of Jane, who lives in a secluded cabin with her father in the Montana wilderness. As Jane begins to learn more about the world and realizes that her father has been hiding things from her, everything changes and the story really takes off. This story explores identity, family ties, love, the evils and wonders of technology and asks the important question, are you one of the good guys? I look forward to reading more of what Janelle Brown has written because I absolutely loved this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an advanced copy of this book.

This will be a top book of the year! It surprised me in the best kind of way. Jane lives, secluded from the world, with only her father. The story changes when she goes to California and experiences life outside of her bubble.

ALL THE STARS!! Wow, a very immersive & un-put-downable read, literally finished it in about 24 hours (who needs sleep LOL). This one is primarily told by Jane, the 17 y.o. MC who’s being raised “Off the Grid” and home schooled in rural Montana in the 90’s by her conspiracy-addled Dad. I initially had some issues with her blind loyalty and naiveté, but when the setting changed to the emerging tech world of San Francisco, it really picked up. That part I really appreciated, and author Brown captures that zeitgeist of dial-up modems, MapQuest, and early dot-com visionaries well. I was reading another NF tech book at the same time and found that they both had a lot to say about how we got to our current dystopia. Highly recommend this phenomenal book!

This was exactly what I wanted: girl growing up practically feral in the backwoods of Montana.  The chapters zipped right along, and I was fascinated.  Jane's life is pretty claustrophobic: it's her dad, and her, and the ramshackle cabin in the woods.  But gradually, as Jane reaches adulthood, she starts to ask questions, and the answers are not always forthcoming.  

The opening chapter is present-day Jane, a mother herself, living a "regular" suburban life, so you know eventually Jane gets out of the woods, and you know her father does ... something newsworthy, in a Unabomber kind of way.  When Jane rummages around her cabin looking for things, and sets aside jars of random bent nails, you know more than Jane does about what those nails are for.  It's a subtle sort of foreshadowing.

The middle of the book, right after Jane gets out of Montana, sagged a bit.  Things go too well for Jane, and I started to get fidgety and bored. But it picks up again!

In general, parts of this book could have been edited to be a lot more concise.  Her dad's long and whiney and self-congratulatory screed that he left for her to read was ... long and whiney and self-congratulatory.  I would have preferred the Cliff's Notes version, and I skimmed parts of that.   I would have given this five stars if it had not felt so bloated.

The writing is generally straightforward, which is how I like it, with a few moments of startling beauty, such as:
<blockquote><i>We are undone by the specificity of our dreams. Reality can never live up to the shining edifices we forge inside our fantasies: Life, in all its confusing complexity, is destined to be a disappointment in comparison.</i></blockquote>

This story of the baby Internet in mid-90s San Francisco is laced with real companies and sites (hotmail, AOL, geocities, Microsoft, Apple, Netscape, AltaVista, MIT Media Lab, Yahoo, IBM) and fake companies (Peninsula Research Institute, Signal, Kaboom). As someone who grew up before the Internet, it was tempting to try to line up the fictional companies in this story with real companies.  Is Floozy a stand-in for Jezebel?  Is Kaboom! a stand-in for Yahoo!?  (The exclamation point indicates "yes," but the fact that Yahoo is mentioned in this book indicates "no.")  At first I thought Signal was Oracle, because the names, locations, and timeline are similar, but Signal is a media and blog company, while Oracle is a software company.  Is Signal a stand-in for Gawker?  (This is what I thought next, the details synch, but the timeline is all wrong.)  Most likely, Signal is Wired (the big clue being Lionel's userid is "SFWired1", also, the author worked at Wired and Salon).  Brianna serves "Two Buck Chuck" wine, which didn't exist back in 1997.

In the author's note, Brown confirms that Ted Kaczynski was her inspiration for Adam Nowak.  No surprise there. I wish there had been more original story and less Unabomber story. I wanted MORE about Jane/Esme's mental & emotional growth.

This was a really well written story with interesting characters The premise was unique and I felt like I learned something as well.

I have heard so many good things about Janelle Brown’s novels and this book did not disappoint. I loved this book about Jane who is raised off the grid with her survivalist father who has unique ideas about society. I’ve seen this billed as a thriller it is more of a family mystery/slow burn with lots of character development. I also found this book to be very unique. I’ve never read anything quite like it. The thoughts about technology were very interesting and how society should proceed forward. I also really adored Lionel. I loved this book and absolutely cannot wait to read Janelle Brown’s backlist.

Oh wow, this was utterly captivating.

Jane lives in Montana with her father Saul. They've lived in a remote cabin since the death of Jane's mother when Jane was four. Their house is a hour away from the nearest town, powered mainly by solar energy, and Jane is taught solely by her father, who rages against technology and preaches over and over that his daughter must fear "the feds" and other people. Now 17, Jane slowly begins questioning her father and his teachings. When she realizes he's unwittingly drawn her into committing a crime, she runs away and heads to San Francisco, looking for answers about the mother she never knew. It's the mid-90s, the Internet is just starting to come into power, and Jane--sheltered from so much--must decide what choices she'll make for her own survival.

This story was so mesmerizing, weaving a tale of isolation and fear. It was easy to feel how trapped Jane felt and see the power of only one voice in her life. She had so few choices, no other way of life to even dream about, with no access to education (except for the philosophy and anti-technology rants of her father). Still, through Saul, Brown makes excellent points about the control technology has over everyone's lives, including the Internet--it's all very timely for a novel set in the 1990s.

This is a powerful and emotional story, powered by its teenage protagonist. While often naive about the world, Jane is a tough kid and a fascinating person to follow. Her story highlights the importance of education and the stark contrast between parental love and parental control. It's also a relevant story for our technology-focused times.

This is a well written story with multifaceted characters. Suspenseful and thought provoking.
Jane has grown up in a remote cabin in rural Montana, her mother having died in a car accident when she was 4 years old, leaving her father to raise her. Jane's father eschews technology and his homeschooling of Jane has focused more on philosophy than science. She is now 17 and eager to experience the world, but he keeps her on a short leash on the rare trips when she accompanies him into Bozeman to deliver the anti-technology zine he writes, but it's 1996 and things are starting to move online so he brings home a modem, a laptop, and books on how to make code html, and he gets Jane to make a website for the manifesto he has written. When he disappears for a few days on one of the mysterious trips he sometimes makes, Jane uses her access to the fledgling world wide web to explore the world she has been cut off from, but what she really wants to know is more about her mother. Not long after, Jane convinces her father to take her along on one of his trips, intent on running away to San Fransisco where she thinks her mother died, but instead Jane finds herself on the run, trying to navigate the Bay area as a naive girl on her own for the first time in her life. What Kind of Paradise is a sweeping coming-of-age story that explores themes of family and how one's identity is shaped, as well as the influence of technology on human evolution.

I will be recommending this book to everyone! I could not put it down. I was drawn to the main character because of her innocence — seeing the world through her eyes was fascinating and it will push you to think about both the drawbacks and advantages of technology. I also love a San Fransisco setting, so that was also right up my alley! Great mix of family drama and mystery. Read this book!!

This is my second Janell Brown book and she is quickly becoming a must read author for me. I really enjoyed the first half of this book! It had an interesting premise, a great main character, and enough mystery to keep me turning the pages. I also loved that it was set in the 90s. A bit of nostalgia for us elder mellenial/gen x folks. However, once I hit the 50% mark it started to drag a bit. I found myself skipping pages and pages of descriptive writing just to keep the storyline moving along (this might be my problem not the writing haha). I was invested enough to keep going and found the resolution satisfactory enough. There are a few things left unanswered that could've rounded out the ending a bit more, but overall a good read and a much different type of story than your typical suspense/thriller novel. I'm surprised by some of the negative reviews but I wonder if these readers are too young to fully understand the nuances of 80s/90s culture and how the internet/computers completely changed our lives.

3.5 stars rounded up

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review

Every novel starts with a what if. What if Harriet Tubman came back to life and decided to record a hip-hop album? What if you were a retired assassin, and someone was trying to kill you? The premise of Janelle Brown’s What Kind of Paradise is, what if your dad was the Unabomber?

Jane lives with her father in a remote cabin in Montana; it’s the only life she’s ever known. He told Jane that her mother died when she was very young, and ever since, it’s been the two of them against the world.

When Jane becomes a teenager, however, she longs to experience life beyond the cabin. She’s occasionally able to catch a peek on her dad’s old TV, when he’s away and she manages to to break into the locked room where it’s kept. It’s the 1990s, and she secretly loves “The X-Files,” even though her father feels that television is a form of societal mind control: “The classic fiction my father had fed me—Anna Karenina and The Red and the Black and The Scarlet Letter—hadn’t prepared me for these wild flights of imagination.”

Her father begins to disappear from the cabin for longer stretches of time, and one day, when he returns, Jane begs him to let her come along on one of his trips. It turns out he’s headed to Seattle, home of Microsoft; his goal is to try and stop the march of technology by any means necessary, and his daughter, who only wanted to visit the big city, becomes his unwitting accomplice.

Shortly thereafter, Jane finds herself in San Francisco at the dawn of the dotcom era. As someone who has first-hand experience with that time and place, I found the portrayal of the hope and promise of the World Wide Web 1.0 to be so accurate that it didn’t surprise me to find out that Brown lived through it as well. (She notes in the acknowledgments that she worked at Wired and Salon at the time.) At one point, Jane picks up a copy of a Wired-like magazine called Signal and reads about “The Future Coming Our Way in the Next 25 Years”: “An economic boom due to new technological breakthroughs will enable everyone to join the middle class, so that there are no more working poor. The proliferation of new media will allow truth to disseminate in new ways, through new voices, bringing an end to widespread ignorance. A rise of liberalism due to a connected global citizenry will usher in the New Enlightenment and the end of fascism and authoritarianism.” The glimpse of 1990s-era techno-utopianism seems heartbreakingly naive in retrospect, but it’s definitely representative of its time; Brown’s Signal issue is clearly inspired by Wired’s notorious “The Long Boom” cover.

In 2025, the writings of Ted Kaczynski seem to be enjoying something of a renaissance. The New York Times recently referred to it as “Tedpilling”—“Kaczynski’s manifesto, dismissed in the 1990s as impenetrable, is now the subject of YouTube videos drawing millions of views apiece.” Luigi Mangione gave it a four-star review on Goodreads, noting that “it’s simply impossible to ignore how prescient many of his predictions about modern society turned out.”

Brown’s novel is a work of imagination, even if it was inspired by factual events, but she writes with such insight and empathy that I couldn’t help but think that if Kaczynski had a daughter, yes, this is exactly how she might have felt. This is a tremendous book, a thoughtful page-turner that I hope will find a place on the bestseller lists.

I absolutely loved this book. It was so compelling and I could not put it down. Jane/Esme was such an intriguing character, and her first person narration about the way she grew up with her unstable father and how she navigated her world post-Montana was heartbreaking. I highly recommend this book and it is certainly one that I will not forget.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book was published June 3.

This is the first book I’ve read by Janelle Brown and I really enjoyed it. I was immediately drawn into Jane’s story. We meet her as an adult with a daughter of her own and then the story flips back to the early-min 1990’s, when she is a teenager, living off the grid with her father in Montana. She’s as far from the typical teenager as you can get and her story is a page-turner.

Themes include technology, family relationships, friendship and nature.

This is a good summer read.