Fran Schechter, reviewing the exhibition for NOW Magazine, complained that the curators' were insiders in the scene they were representing. "Maybe someone with more objective distance would have brought a more critical eye to this material."

Bryne McLaughlin, writing for Canadian art, makes a similar observation,"...there’s a heavy emphasis on insider anecdotes of the Cameron House’s importance to the artists of the day, but little in the way of critical grounding."

Leah Sandals wrote in the National Post, "It seems uncouth for co-curator Rae Johnson to include two of her own (energetic but not so well painted) triptychs, as well as multiple paintings by other artists that are based on her. The wall and brochure texts are also heavy on gush, short on explanation." But she went on to say, "Overall, though, this is a welcome attempt at capturing a largely undocumented local history. It also, unexpectedly, has a strange kind of currency; the twentysomething boho life it pays homage to — one of partying, late nights, revolutionary ideas and, most importantly, the certainty one will never grow old — offers much for anyone who is young, or who’s been young, to relate to."

Christopher Jones, writing for TO Live With Culture says, "For anyone who lived through it, the time and place evoked by This Is Paradise ... is palpable."

Christopher Hume, for the Toronto Star, wrote, "...the advent of This Is Paradise ... comes as a welcome break from the cultural amnesia in which we float."

Andrew Harwood, in the Akimbo Hit List, says, "Wonderfully curated by Rae Johnson and Herb Tookey, This is Paradise | Place as state of mind: The Cameron Public House and 1980’s Toronto at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art made me feel nostalgic for an era that was never mine. It was refreshing to see all of the emerging artists of the time making their stance by embracing the return of representational, figurative, and portrait painting."