What Kind of Paradise

About the book

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A teenage girl breaks free from her father’s world of isolation to discover that her whole life is a lie in this ‘absorbing and well-crafted’ (The Washington Post) novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear.

‘A mesmerizing blend of coming-of-age and psychological suspense, set against the birth of the internet age.’-People

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live in: the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Waldenesque utopia.

As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother’s death: San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling internet, and where she will come to question everything she values.

In this sweeping, suspenseful novel from bestselling author Janelle Brown, we see a young woman on a quest to understand how we come to know ourselves. It is a bold and unforgettable story about parents and children; nature and technology; innocence and knowledge; the losses of our past and our dreams for the future.

Praise for this book:

"This is the work of a writer who truly knows how to thrill. Janelle Brown has constructed a tender novel about parents and children, one that leaves readers weighing unanswerable questions of ethics and responsibility." - Rumaan Alam

"A breathtaking story of love, loyalty, family, and fate, What Kind of Paradise is an incredibly prescient and nuanced exploration of the impact of technology on society and individuals. This is Janelle Brown at the top of her game." - Alafair Burke

"Sinuous, intensely satisfying, spectacular... Janelle Brown's new novel is a complete knockout. Written in her characteristically hypnotic scenes, What Kind of Paradise should be required reading for anyone with qualms about extremism or Big Tech." - Amity Gaige

"What Kind of Paradise is a twisty, sharp coming-of-age story for our strange techno-utopian times. It brims with suspense and family secrets, all while asking big questions about the cost of progress." - Rachel Khong

"An intelligent and thoughtful page-turner that explores the blurry lines between right and wrong, truth and fiction, choice and fate... Janelle Brown methodically unravels my favorite kind of mystery - that of who we are and what we believe at our deepest core." - Jessica Knoll

"What Kind of Paradise is a swiftly moving, gorgeously told story that wrestles with the repercussions of progress, technology, capitalism, and power. Longtime fans of Brown will be thrilled to find her blazing on all cylinders here and newcomers are in for an addictive treat." - Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney