Book of the Week: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Reviewed by our friend Lotte 🌌
“The coveted cover of Time magazine. That’s how far Taylor Jenkins Reid has come, and it seems only the sky is the limit.
Atmosphere, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s new novel, takes place (partly) in the sky, among the stars.
Joan Goodwin is a regular girl with a regular background, now working as an astronomy professor. Single and curious about the stars, her sister, Barbara, nudges her to apply to NASA’s Space Shuttle program where she discovers a new family in her fellow astronauts.
Among them Vanessa, and the friendship, love, kindness and sense of belonging that develops between Joan and Vanessa is the foundation for the book and the basis for an amazing story that touches upon multiple themes described with extraordinary depth.
I was left amazed by the relationship not just between the characters but also between faith and science. At first I found it hard to believe that an astronaut - of all people - would believe so strongly in God. But it all comes together as Joan unfolds her belief.
To her, ‘Science is about figuring out the order of the universe’, and the order of the universe is God in action, which then links science and math as parts of God.
She notes, ‘We, human beings, are the universe.’ and describes beautifully how ‘the air that I breathe is the same air as my ancestors breathed’.
These passages of the book pull you in and keep you reading - and reflecting.
Other passages, like the ones involving family, broke my heart, and the love story was so much deeper than I had expected.
’I would give you anything if it wouldn’t cost us everything,’ says it all about how female astronauts were perceived back in the 1980s.
Somehow this book differs from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s other books. There is a bigger story being told here, which took me by surprise and I will happily admit that this seems to be my favorite book of 2025, and yes, I was sobbing through the last chapters.
Finally - yes, one of the characters from the other books appears. So powerful, and yet so delicately added.
An ode to being human and being loved. What a book!”