Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Wish I could give it more than 5 stars. Holy shit. Just fucking holy shit. The audiobook is damn near perfect. Maybe perfect. Julia Whelan and Kristen DiMercurio were fantastic narrators for this story. OMG my emotions are just all over the place right now.

Here’s the blurb:

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.

I think much of my connection with these women is that my wife and I were in the Marines during the mid 80s-early 90s and so much of what Joan and Vanessa had to deal with, we did too. It all hit very close to home. I mean, we didn’t belong to NASA but we worried every day about our appearance and how others perceived our relationship. Joan and Vanessa were very familiar to us and it wasn’t hard to put ourselves in their place. I hope my wife eventually reads this book. Although I’ve told her a lot about it, I’ve not spoiled anything.

This is my third book by the author and it is, without a doubt, my absolute favorite. Definitely going to have a book hangover for a while. Fuck.



View all my reviews