Book Review: Atmosphere

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. 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. 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, it all changes in an instant.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid will be published on June 3, 2025. Ballantine/Random House Publishing provided an early galley for review.

Having read something before by this author, I thought it was time to give her new one a shot. I definitely have some thoughts on this one.

Clearly Reid has done her homework. This book is chock-full of details relating to NASA, the astronaut program, and everything you would expect for a period piece with this backdrop. The story opens with the fateful December 1984 mission, complete with very accurate technical dialogue that is not explained (why would it be as these characters know their jobs and understand the lingo?). This makes it very authentic. And, unfortunately for me, very boring. I almost decided to stop right from the start as I was not getting any connection to any of the characters; it was names and jargon.

However, I stuck with it. And then the story shifts to the backstory sections. Those are told in chronological order, with returns three more times to the "present day" of December 1984. This format is done, I surmise, to keep the reader on the hook for the present day drama while also filling in with the building of the relationships. There were a couple points in the backstory where I felt the author was info-dumping NASA and the space shuttle history (under the guise of classroom learning). I recognize that this information needed to be there and that Reid did all that research, but it still felt too info-dumpy to me.

The problem with the jumping back and forth narrative structure is that the December 1984 part (which is very exciting and tense) gets defused by spending too much time away. On the flip side, events from that part also tend to undermine/undercut the flashbacks in some cases because we have already learned the fates of certain characters (making me as a reader care less about them in the past).

While the book's description does hint at it, the story spends a lot of time on both a romantic subplot as well as a complicated family subplot. At points, these two take over the narrative and push the space themes to the side. So, those who might be picking up this book for a heavy space action story need to know this.

I did finish the book, and I found the story to be okay and serviceable.