Review: Paradise
So I just want to start off by saying that I don’t understand why I’m hesitant when it comes to reading a Judith McNaught novel. Honestly, I read the blurb, and counting my past experience (love) of McNaught’s novels, I’m still hesitant. Let’s just say, that my gamble paid off when it came to reading my first contemporary by Judith McNaught. Paradise is a long-ass book to say the least, with 700+ pages in print. Although the novel was hella long, the content was still fabulous.
I loved the fact that we got to read about Meredith Bancroft when she was only young and then again at eighteen, and again in her late twenties. Also seeing Lisa Pontini and Matt Farrell at these young ages and then again when they were older. I believe that this particular structure helped set the entire storyline and majorly helped with understanding the characters and their development. As the story progresses and our beloved characters are in their prime, the decisions they make, and the way they think are based off their experiences and they life from early on – which we evidently see in the beginning of the book.
Meredith Bancroft is a strong-willed hard working girl who strives to one day be president of Bancroft & Company just as her ancestors have been – despite her gender. We first meet her as kind of a loner child who had a crush on a man a little older than her. Although she was only young, her aspirations stayed the same and she worked to please her father and fulfill her dream. As she gets older, Meredith has gained confidence, and friends. She is introduced to Matt Farrell and by some accident, he gets her pregnant and from then on, their lives are tied together, whether they know it or not. The next stage we see Meredith is as an adult, just about to live her lifelong dream. As Matt enters her life again after so long, past angst and problems arise and we discover that although both parties dislike each other – with good reason, there is still hope for them and their long buried feelings arise again.
When we first see Matthew Farrell, he is practically a nobody, who’s aspirations are to practically be the most important person. As we get to know him, however, it is clear that he is going places and when we see him as an older person, we know that he has gone places and he is very different from the man working in the steel mills. He now has an aura of power and authority and he’s not afraid to use it – and he does, against everyone.
In the later stages of their lives, the relationship between Matt and Meredith stems from hate. This hate is born out of a misunderstanding on both ends and meddling from one end. Throughout the book, there were times where I just wanted to shake sense into both characters and yell at them for not knowing. When they began their relationship again, there were a whole lot of ups and downs and I was kind of annoyed at the amount of times that the situation changed etc. However, I did love the ending, I’m such a sucker for happy endings and cute epilogues.
Paradise is very well written and the story never failed to impress me and hold me prisoner to it’s words. I think everyone should read this because honestly, it’s great.
