Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
🚀🌌 Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid — 3.5 ⭐ | Space, Secrets & Slow-Burn Love in Zero Gravity
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ⭐⭐⭐✨
Okay listen. I am not a space girl.
I don’t wake up wondering what’s happening in the stratosphere. I barely understand my iPhone updates.
And yet… here I am, fully emotionally invested in a NASA shuttle disaster and a forbidden 1980s lesbian romance. How does this keep happening to me with Taylor Jenkins Reid? 😅
She could write a 400-page novel about the invention of staplers and I’d probably cry.
⚠️ Trigger Warnings
Anti-gay bias / homophobia
Gender discrimination / workplace sexism
Death
Child neglect & emotional abuse
Brief mentions of substance use
Pregnancy loss
📚 Quick Overview (SEO-Friendly Summary)
Atmosphere (2025) is a historical fiction novel set in the 1980s NASA shuttle program, following astronomy professor Joan Goodwin as she becomes one of the first women selected for astronaut training. Told in a nonlinear timeline, the novel blends:
🚀 Space exploration drama
💔 Forbidden romance
👩🚀 Gender discrimination in STEM
👧 Family responsibility and sacrifice
It’s part space procedural, part love story, part emotional family reckoning.
And somehow? It works.
🌊 My Personal Conflict With Space (Yes, We’re Starting Here)
Both of my parents were research scientists in the ocean field. So I grew up very aware that the U.S. spends significantly more money exploring space than exploring our own oceans.
And that has always felt… backwards to me.
There are literal alien-looking creatures at the bottom of our own planet and we’re like, “Nah, let’s check Mars again.” 😂
So when I say I have zero natural interest in space exploration, I mean it.
Add in a central romance about a lesbian relationship — another area I don’t personally gravitate toward in my reading — and this book should NOT have worked for me.
But Taylor Jenkins Reid is annoyingly talented.
✨ Why Taylor Jenkins Reid Just… Works
Her writing is:
Smooth
Immersive
Emotionally intelligent
Easy to devour
Even when the subject matter isn’t inherently thrilling, she makes you feel everything.
And that’s exactly what happened here.
🚨 SPOILER WARNING — FULL PLOT & ENDING BELOW 🚨
You have been warned. We are going ALL IN.
🚀 The Plot — Clean, Complete & In Order (Even If the Book Isn’t)
🎬 Opening: Disaster in Space (1984)
The novel opens on December 29, 1984, in Mission Control.
Astronaut Joan Goodwin is monitoring the shuttle Navigator, carrying:
John “Griff” Griffin
Lydia Danes
Hank Redman
Vanessa Ford
Vanessa and Griff go out on a spacewalk to repair a satellite.
The satellite malfunctions.
💥 It explodes.
Griff is critically injured. The shuttle is damaged. Pressure drops.
Hank and Steve are killed.
Griff and Lydia lose consciousness.
Vanessa is the only one still functional.
Mission Control scrambles to figure out how to get them home alive.
⏪ Seven Years Earlier (1977–1980)
NASA opens astronaut applications to women scientists for the first time.
Joan, an astronomy professor at Rice University, applies.
She fails the first time.
She tries again.
In 1980, she makes it.
👏 Women in space era unlocked.
But make no mistake — the sexism is alive and thriving.
The accepted pilots are mostly white men with military backgrounds who believe women don’t belong there. One in particular — Jimmy Hayman — is especially awful.
👭 The Relationships
Joan befriends her astronaut cohort:
Griff (warm, charming)
Hank (steady)
Donna
Lydia (competitive, guarded)
Vanessa (brilliant pilot, frustrated she can’t fly because she’s a woman)
Joan and Griff briefly kiss during a training trip.
Joan immediately realizes… nope.
She isn’t into him.
She’s into Vanessa.
Cue slow-burn awakening arc.
💕 Joan & Vanessa
By August 1981, Joan and Vanessa begin a secret relationship.
And I mean secret.
It’s the 1980s.
They’re NASA astronauts.
If discovered, they could lose everything.
Their romance develops quietly — not flashy, not dramatic — just intimate and steady.
It’s not explosive passion.
It’s partnership.
👧 The Frances Situation (This Hit Me Harder Than Space)
Joan’s sister, Barbara, is a single mother to six-year-old Frances.
Barbara is… not great at parenting.
She becomes increasingly neglectful while chasing wealthy men. She eventually marries Daniel and prioritizes her new lifestyle over her daughter.
Frances spirals emotionally.
Barbara sends her to boarding school.
Joan confronts Barbara and ultimately takes custody of Frances, promising to raise her.
This storyline felt more emotionally urgent to me than the space stuff, honestly.
👩🚀 Joan Goes to Space
In 1983, Joan becomes the first woman in her cohort selected for a mission.
She flies in November 1984.
She gets sick in space (very human detail — I appreciated that).
She returns home to family drama.
Meanwhile, Vanessa prepares for her own December 1984 mission — the very one that opens the novel.
💔 The Outing
Right before Vanessa’s launch, Joan learns someone has discovered their relationship and reported it.
Joan panics.
She tries to break up with Vanessa to protect her career.
Vanessa refuses.
She would rather never fly again than lose Joan.
They reconcile and promise to figure it out after the mission.
And then…
The explosion happens.
🚀 Back to the Shuttle Crisis
Vanessa must choose:
Fix the damaged latches and miss the deorbit window (risking Lydia’s life)
Or attempt reentry with damaged latches (risking catastrophic breakup)
Mission Control orders her to fix the latches.
While she’s working, they inform her:
Griff has died.
She now knows time is critical.
Vanessa defies Mission Control.
She initiates reentry with compromised latches.
There’s radio silence.
Mission Control believes the shuttle disintegrated.
Then —
Vanessa’s voice comes through.
They landed safely.
Lydia survives.
Vanessa saves them.
💫 Aftermath & Ending
The shuttle crisis ends successfully.
The relationship between Joan and Vanessa remains intact.
Though the outing threatens their careers, Vanessa’s heroic actions complicate any easy dismissal of her.
The novel ends not with dramatic scandal fallout — but with survival.
With choice.
With love.
With the idea that sometimes the boldest act isn’t flying into space.
It’s choosing who you love anyway.
🤔 My Final Thoughts
Was this the most thrilling book ever written?
No.
After it ended, I stepped back and thought, “That wasn’t wildly exciting.”
And yet… I read it quickly. I cared deeply. I felt things.
That’s Taylor Jenkins Reid’s magic trick.
She doesn’t rely on explosions.
She relies on emotional gravity.
Even for someone like me — who would rather read about ocean trench mysteries than orbiting satellites — she made it work.
And honestly? That’s impressive.
📖 If You Liked This, Try:
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon
If you’re like me and love strong women navigating ambition, secrecy, sacrifice, and complicated love — these will hit.
Have you read Atmosphere?
Are you Team Explore the Ocean 🌊 or Team Explore Mars 🚀?
Because I still have opinions. 😌
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