Review of Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I love an astronaut story, and while Reid spent far more page time on relationships than on the astronaut or space aspects, there was plenty of each to go around in this novel that was the perfect book at the perfect time for me. I loved it.

To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.

Joan has always been fascinated by the stars, and as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University, she teaches her passion to college students. On the side, she shows her beloved young niece the sky and serves as a second parent alongside her sometimes-trying single-mother sister.

When she sees an ad seeking for the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program, Joan becomes obsessed with being part of the 1980s training and with becoming one of the first women in space.

I love an astronaut story. Reid spends far more page time on the astronaut aspect than the space aspect (and puts far more emphasis on the relationships than on the astronaut aspect). The complicated interpersonal situations added wonderful depth to the complexities of astronauts' training, stresses, competition, and life-and-death goals of entering space. The women's fights to fully be part of a traditionally male-dominated field and the various ways in which they navigated this were particularly captivating to me.

The constricting social standards of the 1980s limit Vanessa and Joan's freedom to express their feelings publicly, and this reflection of the real-life times is heartbreaking to read. I adored the love for Joan's niece Frances that draws the in-love couple even more deeply together.

The carelessness that partially leads to the crisis in space felt unrealistic to me, and the high drama and gasping reveal regarding the pivotal space scene toward the end could have felt over the top, but as usual, I was putty in Taylor Jenkins Reid's hands, ready to embrace every bit of it.

This was exactly the right story for me at the right time, and I hugged it to my chest when I finished, then immediately began telling everyone how much I loved it.

More Love for the Author and for Astronaut Stories

Taylor Jenkins Reid is also the author of Carrie Soto Is Back, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Malibu Rising, and Daisy Jones & the Six.

You might also want to check out these other Bossy reviews of books about astronauts and space.