Book Review: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
A story that made me feel small in the best way
Midweek Musings is a cozy mix of book recs, library lists, and reading reflections, thoughtful updates I’d share at a playdate or while browsing the shelves with a friend.
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Some kids grew up obsessed with space. They had glow-in-the-dark constellations stuck to their ceilings, dressed as astronauts every Halloween, and could list off the planets in order with spooky accuracy. I, on the other hand, was… terrified. The idea of infinite darkness? The scale of the universe? The reminder that we’re all just tiny blips on a floating rock? Hard pass. So when I saw that Taylor Jenkins Reid’s newest novel, Atmosphere, was about NASA and the first woman scientist in the Space Shuttle Program, I hesitated. I’ll admit it: I wasn’t sure a space story could be for me. But I trusted TJR and I’m so glad I did.
If you’ve read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Daisy Jones & The Six, you already know, Taylor Jenkins Reid doesn’t just write stories, she builds entire worlds and then breaks your heart inside them. Atmosphere is no different, though this one felt quieter. More intimate. More devastating, in a slow-burn, tender way that stayed with me long after I closed the book. It follows Joan Goodwin, a brilliant but grounded (literally) physics professor who joins NASA’s Space Shuttle Program in the 1980s. What unfolds is a story about ambition, identity, sacrifice, and love, in all its layered, complicated, beautiful forms.
What surprised me most wasn’t the technical space stuff (which was woven in with just the right amount of detail), but how deeply personal it felt. Joan’s voice was so well-written, I felt like I was her, terrified, brave, in awe, unsure, curious, and utterly human. The emotional arc is steep and subtle. It’s character-driven, intimate, and quietly radical.
The themes in this book are what took it from good to unforgettable for me. The pressure to hide who you are to succeed. The ache of carrying other people’s expectations. The question of whether big accomplishments mean anything if you don’t have anyone to share them with. Atmosphere isn’t just about space, it’s about the people who dare to leave Earth behind and the lives they build (or lose) in the process. It’s about chosen family, quiet courage, and finding home in places you never expected.
The love in this book destroyed me to the tiny pieces and then glued me back together. the slow realization that these women , these strong, brilliant, terrified women, had carved out a love story in the cracks of a system that was never built for them. A love story with no guarantees, no safety nets, no room to exist in daylight. Just small moments. A hand on a wris, a voice on the comms, a choice to stay.
It’s a soul-level ache. It’s a deep, slow, burning orbit around something forbidden and fragile and life-defining. This is a love story that spans years of longing, silence, sacrifice, and all the things we don’t say because it’s the only way to survive the world we’re in. And holy hell, did I feel it. Every second of it. I felt like my body couldn’t hold how much I needed these two women to just reach each other.
There is a line from Joan that gutted me. She said, “If we leave the planet, we carry that with us into every room we enter for the rest of our lives.” That was about going to space, yes, but also about love, about loss and being forever changed.
There’s one part of Joan’s story that hit me just as hard, maybe even harder, than the romance: her relationship with her niece, frances. I wasn’t prepared for how deeply that bond would cut me open. It’s this quiet, steady love threaded through the background of Joan’s life, but it grounds everything. It’s the first relationship that shows us who Joan really is, not just the astronaut, not just the brilliant woman walking into rooms full of men who underestimate her, but the woman who drops everything to raise her sister’s child. Who teaches Frances about the stars when she can’t get her to stop crying. Who speaks to her in constellations and moon phases when the rest of the world is just noise.
I cried, like ugly cried. I love when books make me cry because it rarely happen. I cried because this book made me believe that love can exist even in silence. That sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is “I’ve got you,” when the whole world is falling apart. That love can be built in glances, in quiet acts of loyalty, in pressure applied to a space suit at 218 miles above earth.
I rarely hand out five-star ratings, but this was an easy one. The kind of book I couldn’t stop thinking about. The kind that felt like it cracked something open in me. I’m certain a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich with a strawberry milkshake in the tin would fix me.
P.S. Taylor Jenkins Reid curated a dreamy playlist to accompany the book, and it’s the perfect pairing. Equal parts cinematic and haunting, it made me want to stare out a window dramatically while reflecting on every decision I’ve ever made. Highly recommend queuing it up while you read (or while you recover emotionally afterward).
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