Cool Girl Critiques: Atmosphere
Review by Alicia Gilstorf
Reading this book didn’t physically take me to outer space, so why does it feel like I touched the stars?
An all too brief and sudden burst of intoxicating love, Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid burns bright as it soars towards a greatness we once reserved for her previous book The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.
Two women, with the weight of the world on their shoulders, fight to carve out a corner of history where their love story can take off. Joan and Vanessa’s courageous tale is a down-to-earth demonstration of the everyday heroics women face, with a splash of space travel to get that heart pumping. Their emotional journey is one that will resonate with every reader.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has demonstrated time and again with novels like Malibu Rising and Carrie Soto Is Back that she can weave epic love stories that graze the core of the human soul. However, there is something particularly gut-wrenching about her All-American forays into sapphic storytelling. She captures a fictional snapshot of an iconic moment in American history from the perspective of women who possess a great capacity for love and growth.
Leading lady stargazer Joan is no different as she aims her sights on space travel with grace and kindness as her compass, faltering only when the universe gives her a reason to stay on Earth. Joan is a people person, uplifting everyone on the crew with her calm, inclusive demeanor. It allows many of the side characters in this NASA ensemble to feel just as alive through their encounters with Joan as she coaxes a softer side out of them.
Her best work happens with the blunt, promotion-hungry Lydia, who initially believes she will have to stop at nothing to be the first woman in their group to go to space. Joan never forces change directly on Lydia, but her ability to draw out the truth behind the brainiac’s competitive, male-forward nature is far more fascinating. Joan’s separate journey to uncovering her sexuality after so many years of believing she understood her place in the world is equally enthralling. There’s no better protagonist to lead this mission to victory.
Vanessa is the perfect foil to that objective, ruling over Joan’s quiet presence with unruly hair and a knowing smile that practically undresses Joan in every group outing. Their chemistry is a fireball of unsaid confessions and unbearable tension. When the two women finally collide, it’s enough to put down the book and shout, “Housten, we have lift off!”
Each relationship, romantic or otherwise, is tender-hearted and dynamic, drawing the reader in and keeping them engaged throughout the story.
Regardless of the route this book takes on its journey, the dialogue pulls you in, and the author maintains a strong enough hold on the fictional world of NASA space travel. However, her out-of-this-world character developments have us eager to look elsewhere for entertainment. Joan’s time with her beloved niece could easily clash or overpower the slow-burn romance at the center of this story. Instead, Jenkins-Reid plays them off each other, using two powerful love stories to prop each other up.
It is a balancing act that is cruel and calculating in its victories, too. The novel utilizes time jumps to keep us enthralled by the outcome of Joan and Vanessa’s mission to become the first female astronauts. It is in these time jumps that we are shattered and put back together over and over again. As the book expertly develops relationships between Joan and her crewmates, it stands to tear them down just as quickly to demonstrate the merciless hand of God that is outer space. This story fires on every cylinder, offering a healthy dose of found-family themes and positive, women-forward discussions where the women’s achievements and struggles take center stage. All while keeping its eyes on the sky and the possibilities that lay beyond the horizon.
Atmosphere is a cosmic love ballad for space nerds who look to the stars for that once-in-a-lifetime love. Its smooth dialogue and sharp tongue will break your heart over and over, then make you laugh out loud on the very next page. When the grand finale of this thrill ride appears, the book slams shut, leaving the reader breathless and disoriented.
The unconventional ending rushes at you so suddenly and violently that you have this urge to be angry with the author for not delivering a traditional happy ending. However, it is all the small moments of happiness collected throughout this tale that make the journey far more valuable than the destination. This is a ride you will give anything to experience again.
Visit the original article here
The Happy Reader Reviews Atmosphere
Taylor Jenkins Reid has long been one of my favorite authors, and Atmosphere is a shining example of why. This novel is smart, emotional, and utterly engrossing — a beautifully layered blend of historical fiction, space thriller, slow-burn romance, and powerful female friendships.
Set across two distinct timelines — the summer of 1980 and December 1984 — Atmosphere follows Joan Goodwin, a physics and astronomy professor at Rice University whose world is quietly content. She finds meaning in her work and joy in being an involved aunt to her whip-smart niece, Frances. But when Joan sees an ad calling for women scientists to apply to NASA’s Space Shuttle program, something shifts. A dream she thought she’d buried resurfaces — and she dares to chase it.
Joan’s selection into the program marks the beginning of an unforgettable journey. We’re introduced to a remarkable cast of fellow astronaut candidates — including a Top Gun pilot, a magnetic engineer, and a mission specialist who doesn’t play nice. The training scenes are vivid and detailed, capturing both the physical and emotional toll of preparing for space. And as Joan pushes herself further than ever before, the bonds she forms — especially with her female peers — reveal the strength and resilience of women in a male-dominated space (literally and figuratively).
Reid doesn’t shy away from the misogyny of the era. The women face subtle and overt discrimination, and each responds in her own way. It’s a sharp reminder of how far we’ve come — and how far we still have to go. One moment that stuck with me was the idea that Joan’s peers sometimes see her more clearly than she sees herself — a quiet yet profound observation about self-perception and growth.
Without spoiling anything, I’ll say that the romance in this story is written with the kind of tenderness and tension that Reid does so well. It fits the time period beautifully, and adds a whole new dimension to Joan’s character arc. Equally compelling is Joan’s relationship with her niece Frances. Their connection was one of my favorite parts of the book — honest, loving, and quietly life-shaping. I’d love to see a future book written from Frances’ point of view as she navigates adulthood with Joan’s influence lingering in the background.
The final chapters are gripping — emotionally intense, at times heartbreaking, and full of unexpected turns. I genuinely couldn’t stop reading. The story stayed with me long after I finished, and I suspect it will continue to orbit in my mind for quite some time.
Final Thoughts:
Atmosphere is everything I hoped it would be — a compelling, character-driven novel with heart, tension, and a whole lot of soul. It’s a 5-star read for me, and one I’ll be recommending often.
Visit the original article here
The NPR Interview: Taylor Jenkins Reid imagines the first women astronauts
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, NPR HOST: The new novel "Atmosphere" starts in 1984 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Joan Goodwin is an astronaut, but her job on this day is with mission control. She's tasked with being the only person who speaks directly to the crew aboard the space shuttle Navigator. Joan is a calm person, which is good, given the crisis that quickly unfolds.
TAYLOR JENKINS REID: (Reading) Everyone is up out of their seats. Joan can barely hear herself think. She has been through simulations like this, with the pressure dropping rapidly and no way to stabilize it. They have ended only when the leak is found or the crew dies. This is NASA. We have a plan for this.
ELLIOTT: We have a plan for this. I love that line.
REID: Thank you. I think I stole it from NASA (laughter), so all compliments go to NASA on that one.
ELLIOTT: That's author Taylor Jenkins Reid. She didn't just write a gripping story about a space accident. "Atmosphere" covers the early days of the shuttle program and the challenges faced by the first women astronauts. That includes proving themselves. It also includes self-discovery. High-achieving astronomer Joan Goodwin never thought she'd ever fall in love. When she does, with fellow astronaut Vanessa Ford, the two have to keep their relationship quiet. The stakes get especially high during the crisis, 250 miles above the Earth, when Vanessa is the only astronaut aboard the Navigator who can communicate with mission control.
REID: They are deploying a satellite when something goes wrong. There are two explosive cords that detonate. And one of them detonates incorrectly and sends shrapnel into the airlock, and also somewhere into the cabin. The cabin pressure begins to drop rapidly, which can be very fatal very quickly.
ELLIOTT: Introduce us to Joan Goodwin. Who is she? And what is her life like before she joins NASA?
REID: Yeah. So Joan Goodwin is an astronomer. She's been in love with the stars since she was a child. And when she hears that women are being accepted into the Astronaut Corps, she becomes very eager to apply. She actually applies twice before she gets in. And it's only once she gets to the Astronaut Corps and she is surrounded by this new group of people that she starts to realize she may not understand herself as much as she thought she did.
ELLIOTT: At one point, Joan says to one of her new colleagues, I've always felt, when I look at the stars, I'm reminded that I'm never alone. What does she find at NASA?
REID: She finds like-minded people. She finds people who understand her in a way that no one else really has before. They're all attempting to do something really exceptional. They're all attempting to leave the atmosphere. And the pull to do that is something that has been in her for a long time, but has always been hard to describe. And so when she meets a group of people who also feel that pull, she feels a kinship that she's never felt before, and she feels that most specifically with Vanessa Ford. Vanessa seems to be able to articulate why she wants to go up there in a way that really captivates Joan.
ELLIOTT: So the novel takes place - this is the early 1980s. It's toggling back and forth between the space disaster - right? - and the years leading up to it. As Joan and Vanessa and others are training, they are the second-ever astronaut cohort with women in it. What was NASA like for them back then?
REID: You know, I read a lot of books about the space shuttle program. And one of the things that I kept seeing was how NASA, but also the press, had a lot of adjusting to do in allowing women into the Astronaut Corps. It's not just that a lot of the men had to learn how to work with women. It was also things as simple as the spacesuits were made for a male body. The parachutes during water survival training, the harnesses - all of them were made for a male body.
So there were a lot of things that the first few rounds of women entering the Astronaut Corps had to sort of raise their hand and say, hey, here's where we need things to change. And I'm always curious about that moment for anyone. But for women in general, how do they handle that moment? How do they make the world change in these small incremental ways? It was part of the appeal of writing about NASA for me. I got really curious what it was like to be one of those women in Group 8 or Group 9.
ELLIOTT: Now, how did you research all of this? Did you actually go talk to people at NASA in those early days?
REID: You know, the first thing I did was, I went to the Johnson Space Center. We actually went into a decommissioned space shuttle, which was really incredible. I watched all the great space movies. I watched "Gravity" and "Apollo 13" and "The Right Stuff" and all that. But the fact is, the hardest part of this book was getting the mechanics of the space shuttle right and understanding the specifics of mission control. And for that, I needed help. And I'm very fortunate to be able to say that Paul Dye, who is the longest-serving flight director at NASA, who served during the space shuttle program and has since retired - he was very generous with his time and really helped to make this book what it is.
ELLIOTT: That explains how you knew exactly how many latches there were on every hatch, and...
REID: (Laughter) Yeah. And also, I will say, one of the things that I was surprised to find is that because NASA is a government organization, there is a lot of old PDFs you can find on the internet. So I have papers about the payload bay doors that were written in the 1970s. And, you know, when a sentence just got too convoluted for me to understand without an engineering degree, I called Paul Dye.
ELLIOTT: Joan is a scientist, but she's also, at times, sharing her sense of faith. I'm wondering if we can get you to read some of that section of the book. It's this moment where she and Vanessa are talking about religious belief. And Joan says, the pursuit of a unifying theory to explain the universe is science, but it's also the pursuit of God.
REID: This is Joan speaking to Vanessa.
(Reading) I would go so far as to say that as human beings, we are less of a who and more of a when. We are a moment in time when all of our cells have come together in this body. But our atoms were many things before, and they will be many things after. The air I'm breathing is the same air your ancestors breathed. Even what is in my body right now - the cells, the air, the bacteria - it's not only mine. It's a point of connection with every other living thing, made up of the same kind of particles, ruled by the same physical laws.
ELLIOTT: Where does this come from? Is this your belief, as well?
REID: I'm writing as Joan, but I would be lying if I didn't admit that a lot of Joan has rubbed off on me. When I decided to write about space, I didn't know that I would feel like that necessitated writing about spirituality, but the two feel very linked, to me. And I felt like Joan would be prompted in her life to have thought about these things, and I believed she would think of them this way. I'm not putting forth any new ideas, but this is who I believe Joan is. And it's one of my favorite things about her, and it is certainly something I've taken with me myself.
ELLIOTT: Taylor Jenkins Reid. Her new novel is "Atmosphere." Thank you so much for being on the program.
REID: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Visit the original article here
Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of five New York Times Bestselling novels. Her books have been chosen by Reese’s Book Club, Read with Jenna, GMA Book Club, Indie Next, Best of Amazon, and Book of the Month. Her novel, Daisy Jones and The Six, is now a limited series on Amazon Prime. She lives in Los Angeles.