Atmosphere: A Love Story

Ever since reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (which I've read and listened to a few times), Taylor Jenkins Reid has been one of my auto-read authors. Now she's back with a well-researched, gripping and poignant story that digs deep into women's issues -- and may make readers shed a tear or three.

This is a story about the bravery and tenacity of kick ass women as readers witness compelling and well-developed characters going where no (wo)man has gone before. Due to its NASA setting, it got a bit 'sciency' at times, but it is manageable for even the most non-sciency among us. The amount of research TJR had to do for this book is mind-boggling and I'm throwing heaps of praise at the dedication that entailed.

Atmosphere follows the personal and professional lives of Joan Goodwin, an astronomer who earns the opportunity to be part of the vastly male-dominated 1980's Space Shuttle program. The story shows the intensive training Joan and her fellow female astronauts endure while battling misogynistic ideas of what women are capable of with some heart-wrenching romance thrown in for good measure. This plot has elements of love, friendship, family, and courage and reminds us to pay respect to the dedication and intrepidness of the women who have come before us.

Evelyn Hugo continues to be my fav TJR book to date, but Atmosphere comes in as a close second. This is a great pick for book clubs (especially in - but not restricted to - Pride Month!) and I love that it will instigate discussion about the power, unflinching determination and capabilities of women and our right to decide what we want to do with our lives, hearts and minds. 

My Rating: 4.5 stars

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Genre: Historical Fiction

Type and Source: Trade paperback from public library

Publisher: DoubleDay Canada

First Published: June 3, 2025

Read: May 29-31, 2025

Book Description from GoodReads: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.