Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid
The first 20 minutes of “Atmosphere” are almost unfairly good. We’re thrown straight into a space shuttle disaster — no preamble, no exposition — and basically asked to buckle up. It’s tense, cinematic and hooks you instantly.
From there, we rewind seven years to Houston, 1977, where Joan Goodwin is still earthbound and working as a physics professor more or less invisible to her colleagues, her family and maybe even herself.
This is a novel about space, yes, but it’s also about constraints. What it means to want something enormous, only to realize you may have to make yourself smaller to reach it. About what it means to live within institutions that weren’t built for you.
These aren’t new themes for queer people, for women or for anyone who's ever had to hide in plain sight. But it’s powerful to see them rendered with such aching clarity by one of the world’s most successful commercial fiction writers.
I’m hesitant to use the word brave, but Reid’s decision to center a sapphic love story without softening its consequences, risks alienating parts of her beach-read audience. That matters, and it makes this book feel like something more ambitious than her past work.
By revealing the outcome of the 1984 mission early on, Reid bakes tension into every interaction that follows. We know from the start who survives and who doesn’t. That amps up the emotional stakes for characters we’re still getting to know (a trick Suzanne Collins used to great effect in “Sunrise on the Reaping,” too).
Per usual, Reid’s character work shines. Even side characters — many of whom don’t make it through the disaster — leave a mark. Griff, the affable scientist with a quiet crush on Joan, becomes one of the novel’s most moving examples of allyship. Lydia, who starts as comic relief, ultimately helps save the crew and recasts her whole arc in a more serious light. Vanessa, emotionally guarded and technically brilliant, becomes the novel’s spine.
Others are more uneven. Joan’s sister Barbara feels more like a plot device than a person, and her daughter Frances adds tension but not much depth. These family dynamics humanize Joan, but they don’t resonate the way her professional and emotional journeys do.
I usually root hard for 80s-set sapphic love stories (hello, “San Junipero”), but Joan and Vanessa didn’t quite land for me — at least not at first. Their connection feels more circumstantial than magnetic: two lonely, ambitious women finding in each other someone who understands the pressure without judgment.
That changed during a quiet, devastating scene where Joan realizes she can’t bring Vanessa to her sister’s wedding. It’s a moment of queer shame, of small but shattering erasure, and it’s what finally made their relationship feel real.
Joan doesn’t come out so much as she edges toward self-recognition. It’s a slow, quiet reckoning that feels historically honest. This isn’t a triumphant queer narrative, it’s a plausible one — and that makes it hit harder.
Reid has always excelled at hooks, but “Atmosphere” aims for more. It doesn’t just ask whether women can make it to space, it asks what part of themselves they have to leave behind to get there. It examines the real cost of being queer in a professional environment, especially one dominated by men and rigid norms. These issues are still relevant, and Reid handles them with more nuance than she’s often credited for.
Julia Whelan, as always, delivers a great audiobook performance. She nails the emotional unraveling of Joan in the final chapters, making the last 20 minutes of the audiobook genuinely tear-inducing. Kristen DiMercurio brings much-needed gravity to Vanessa’s voice during the 1984 sequences. Still, I wish the narration had been more integrated — each narrator playing off the other might’ve added texture to the dual timelines.
Compared to Reid’s other work, this sits in the middle. It’s a major step up from “Carrie Soto Is Back,” and more emotionally grounded than “Malibu Rising,” even if it doesn’t hit the high notes as consistently as “...Evelyn Hugo.”
What sets it apart is its relevance. Reid doesn’t just put a queer woman in space, she makes you feel what it costs to stay there. It’s not perfect, but it’s important.
And it’ll make a helluva movie.
Rating (story): 4/5 stars
Rating (narration): 4/5 stars
Format: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: June 9 – June 12, 2025
Multi-tasking: Good to go, but make sure to give the beginning and ending your full attention. It’s quite the ride.
