I always look forward to a new release from Janelle Brown. Her new book, What Kind of Paradise, is such a great read! It's set in the era of early internet in the 1990s. Jane has been living off-grid in Montana with her father after losing her mother in a car accident. Now that she's turned 17, Jane has many questions about her mother and the lifestyle her father has chosen for them to live. Jane begins a journey of factfinding that leads her to San Francisco and even more questions about who she really is. I absolutely loved this book and can't wait for everyone to get their hands on it. It's one of those reads that has you thinking about it even when you can't be reading it. Read and enjoy!

Thank you, NetGalley, Random House, and Janelle Brown for this Advance Readers copy!

The first third of this book had me thinking I was re-reading a mix of These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant and Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren. It all felt oddly like I was re-reading it even thought it was my first time. I did like the atmospheric tendencies and felt like the plot was developed best in this portion of the story.

The second third of the book was vastly different and interesting but could have been developed in different ways that dove more into particular themes. I did appreciate the character development and use of varying character and situational archetypes. Though it took the plot a different direction, I had a harder time staying invested in this part.

The final third of the book was a good summation but was so short and left a ton of questions when I felt like it was written in a way to tie things up. It felt like someone ending a conversation with “mhmm, okay, bye” just to be done with it. It was just odd how it pulled together in the end after skipping decades like it was nothing.

What I liked overall: the coming of age mystery style, the consistent use of deep and complex vocabulary, and the morality questioning that made me genuinely have to think about my own position on my reliance on technology.

Overall, it was good, but it wasn’t my favorite by the author.

What a great, atmospheric drama! Loved the details of a secluded cabin and wanted more from that aspect. This author is new to me and I'm excited to check out her previous work.

It’s been awhile since I sunk into a book that forces me to set aside all other reading, indeed all other pastimes, and keep turning the pages. “What Kind of Paradise” is such a book.

Jane and her father live off the grid in 1990s Montana in a 700 square foot cabin. Jane is homeschooled by her genius father who loves philosophy and abhors technology. He writes a newsletter of limited circulation about the coming Apocalypse. One day he returns from a scavenging foray with a discarded computer (think 1996-era boxy unit with floppy disks) and a how-to HTML book. He tasks Jane with building a website for his anti-tech manifesto, not realizing the self-contradiction.

The slow dial-up connection nevertheless exposes Jane to a world beyond the cabin, and she begins to question her father’s beliefs and decisions. Is the world as dangerous as her father claims? Did he tell her the truth about her mother’s death? Is it OK to employ violence in furtherance of a good cause? With 30 years hindsight, were her father’s predictions realized?

This novel is rich in discussion topics for book clubs. But mostly it is an engrossing, thought-provoking read. This is the first book I’ve read by Janelle Brown. I will definitely be exploring her backlist.

Riveting enough for me to speed through this in one day, engaging enough that I never wanted to put it down, and satisfying enough to keep me thinking about this in the days to come. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC! Jane is a teenager who lives in an off the grid cabin in rural Montana in the 1990's with only her father for company. He is her sole parent, her sole educator, and most times, her sole connection to anything or anyone in the outside world. He is also deeply paranoid about the rise of the internet, computers, and technology in general. He spends long days composing manifestos filled with rantings against how fast humanity is changing because of the world wide web, and lecturing Jane on the evils of nearly everything outside of their cabin. As Jane gets older and longs to know more about her dead mother, her father's life before the cabin, and herself, she finds herself unwittingly and unknowingly involved in some of her father's most dangerous and selfish pursuits. Is he a monster or a prophet? This was one of the most unique and interesting ARC's I've read lately. It's part coming of age, part tech thriller, and part societal commentary. Overall, I found this to be a truly engaging, compelling, and important exploration of what makes us who we are, and who we hope to be.

I really enjoyed this book! It definitely kept me engaged and it was interesting reading about the time period when tech exploded from this perspective.

"...I could see exactly what he meant: What kind of paradise we inhabited, the utopia he so desperately wanted our world to be." -Jane

Jane lives a secluded existence, totally controlled by her father. She has nothing to compare to, no touch with society other than what her father deems appropriate for her. It's the 1990's and at seventeen she has been 'home-schooled' by a man who shuns society in general, hates technology and has educated her by way of 19th century philosophy. After begging to go with her father on one of his trips away from their cabin in Montana she is shocked to realize that she is part of a horrific crime. What has her father done? Who are they really? Is her mother really dead as he has told her?

I received an advanced reader's copy of this book from the author and publisher through NetGalley. I finished in the wee hours of this morning, and I can honestly say I am not sure how I feel about it. "Jane" is a magnetic character. Through the pages I did come to care about her. I was invested in what would happen to her, what had happened from her early days forward. She is so sheltered having been raised by a selfish, most probable mentally disturbed individual. She is an incredibly naive child. It's sad.
I think part of my problem is the timing in the story. It starts with an adult character, mother of a teenager, who tells her story by recalling the events of her life with memories and her father's writing. In some places it dragged for me, mostly where her father added to the story. It wasn't long before I thought of Ted Kaczynski. I will leave it at that.
The girl is a believable character who comes across as realistic in speech, thought and naivety. I will admit that the father made some sense at times. He was a deluded and awful person in his quest to have a perfect world for his daughter. There is suspense as she steps from her known world, her father's utopia, into the 'real' one. It certainly highlights the introduction of computers, Internet and the 'sides' of the value of both. (Makes one think with AI, etc. of today.) There are some very sad things for Jane to deal with also. She does stay mentally strong in my opinion.
Lionel is a character that shines in this story. He is one reason why I can say the book was worth reading. This is my own unsolicited opinion.

Language
Trigger: 'kidnapped by parent'
Having no choice

I felt like id read this book before. The first section, with her dad, was so similar to other books i've read that I found it boring and it just took forever to move on. The rest of the book failed to make up for the beginning.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC of this book. I had heard a lot of hype about this book, and it did not disappoint. It is hard to describe without any spoilers, but it is about Jane, the daughter of two extremely intelligent Silicon Valley pioneers. She is raised by her father off the grid in Montana after he turns away from technology and comes to believe it will destroy the world. It is very much a coming of age story about Jane, who grows up isolated and homeschooled by her father. Once she moves to the real world, namely San Francisco at the birth of the dot com boom, she must confront her feelings about her dad. Unlike most teenagers, her view of her dad is pretty nuanced even though his behavior was extreme. In San Francisco, Jane is also exposed to a utopian view of technology that is the polar opposite of what she was taught growing up. In addition to a think piece about the impact of information technology on society, this novel also ends up being a fantastic period piece about San Francisco circa 2000. It was only 25 years ago, but the painful naivete and hero worship of that period feels worlds away. Like Jane's parents, geniuses who lacked key social and parenting skills, the lack of understanding of how humans would manipulate technology has proven very costly. Despite his actions, Jane's dad ends up looking like the prophet. Even though it is definitely a.page turner, I would classify this book as literary fiction.

This was a long book. Centered around technology advacements and what one man would do to try and keep that away from his family. Parts were a little long and borning, but overall a pretty good story. I liked how they made one character out to be the 'villian' only to discover later, that really was not the case.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Jane is a teenage girl, raised isolated in the wilderness of Montana with only her father to keep her company. She know almost nothing about her past or her dead mother, and next to nothing about the modern world which is just outside of her reach. As both her father's thinking and behaviors become more fringe and concerning, Jane makes a brave and desperate plan to escape her life of seclusion and find answers about who she is and where she came from.
This is the kind of "thriller" I tend to like- slower burn and cerebral, although at times it did slow to the point of become a tiny bit sluggish. I still enjoyed it, but this is good to know going in. Brown does an excellent job of presenting two sides of a philosophical debate about what constitutes progress, as well as the dangers of hubris and the choice to live in an echo chamber. It's also a coming of age story- maybe an extreme one, but the themes are universal. That said, Jane's loneliness and confusion felt visceral and heartbreaking. I unhesitatingly recommend this to a variety of readers and am glad to have finally read one of Ms. Brown's books! I was not disappointed.

From the ARC: "Never underestimate the power of love to lead you down the path toward willful blindness. Faith in the people you adore doesn’t disappear slowly, with each tiny disappointment; instead, it collapses all at once, like the final snowfall that triggers an avalanche when the weight suddenly becomes too much to bear."

I read and really enjoyed two of this author's books, Pretty Things and I'll be You, which fell in the mystery/thriller/suspense genres. This book is categorized as thriller, suspense, psychological fiction, so I went in expecting a fast paced book with a twist or two. I don't think that this book actually falls under those genres, and I'm not sure where it belongs (coming of age?) but I don't think I'm the most qualified person to review this novel. That said, here goes:

What I liked:
Jane's father, Saul, is a highly intelligent character. We're introduced to him at a point in his life when his narcissistic and paranoid tendencies have taken over and clouded the ability to use his incredible mind rationally. Jane was raised by her father alone in a cabin in the woods, with minimal influence from the outside world. He had little difficulty imposing his anti-technology, anti-government, self-reliant belief system upon her. Plus, if Jane needs any further defense than being brainwashed from a young age, there was truth to portions of his beliefs. We are wasteful, we do buy a lot of useless crap that ends up in landfills within a relatively short period of time, we should mend instead of replace and we definitely should respect nature more. But his beliefs go beyond that into extremist territory, especially with regard to technology. While he initially attempted to disseminate these beliefs via a magazine he wrote & sold through a local bookstore, that ability came to a halt and technology continued to progress leading him to feel the need to take drastic action.

Jane shares insight into what her life was like growing up with her father both living off the land and being homeschooled. We see how she was manipulated into helping her father commit an atrocious act. Most interesting, I think, was her introduction and adaptation to society (once going back home to the cabin was no longer an option) and the accompanying realization of all the things her father hid from her. Even with that knowledge, it's still profoundly difficult for Jane to see her father in black and white as the rest of the world does.

This was very well written and I am sure it will captivate the right audience. It read like a memoir. For me, I thought it progressed slowly and I didn't feel the constant pull to pick it back up as with books I'm really into, but I read mysteries, thrillers and fantasy which tend to move at quick & suspenseful pace.

Thank you Netgalley, Random House and Janelle Brown for the ARC.

What a compelling novel! This newest story by Janelle Brown reads like a memoir and is unputdownable. The characters of Jane and her father are convincingly crafted and the story trajectory is nuanced and true. Loved every minute of reading What Kind of Paradise. #RandomHouse #netgalley

Jane and her father, Saul, live a very isolated life in a remote cabin in Montana. When her mother was killed in a car accident, Jane was homeschooled and isolated, alone with her father, except for her trips to the local bookstore. Saul isn't the best father. He leaves for days at a time, and when he is home, he writes his thoughts about the downfall of society and technology. When he returns from his trip this time, he returns with a computer. Anxious and curious Jane teaches herself how to use the computer, and the world outside of the cabin opens in front of her. Once she's learned more about the world, and made a friend in San Francisco, Jane begs Saul to take her with him on his outing. When he does, everything spirals and Jane has no choice but head to San Francisco.

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Well, well, well..... Saul is brilliant, but clearly suffering from mental illness. Jane is being held back from the modern world because of this illness. Janelle Brown does an excellent job of creating a claustrophobic setting; you can feel the body heat and the smells of living in close quarters.

Essentially, this is a story about family, growing up, and finding your own way. It's powerful storytelling, and this book is a gem.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

An engrossing and suspenseful story about a father and daughter who live off-grind. I found myself turning every page with rapt attention as the eeriness of their situation came to light. A one-sitting type of read!

an interesting drama that comments on the rise of technology and a teenager’s quest to find herself after a life of isolation and unanswered questions.

i found the premise to be intriguing, but ultimately this fell a little flat. the pacing was off. there were parts that had me immersed in the story, while other chapters dragged. it took me a while to get into this book. there was a lot of terminology used that made it hard to follow, but made sense for the characters.

overall, a solid story, but i wasn’t particularly attached to it. however, i wish that esme and lionel ended up together! i thought that they would :(

thanks to netgalley and random house for this digital arc in exchange for a review! all thoughts are my own :)

I did enjoy this book but honestly it was so similar in the first half to another similar novel that I found myself a bit distracted and struggled to keep going. In the end, I’m glad I did because it was a very compelling story with so much to love. A slow burn with a good payoff for sure.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4 for me, and I’m sure I’ll be an outlier. I've already seen rave reviews from other readers that I trust.

I've read 1 or 2 of the author's previous books and enjoyed them. The slow story and build in this one kept me from feeling connected to the characters and story. I liked the protagonist a lot but it felt like we jumped years in her life, when her true character was being built. Good setting. Different topic for me. But all in all, it didn't grip me as a suspense or mystery story should.

I really enjoyed this book. Very thought provoking with a gripping story. Loved the protagonist, Jane.