Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid Book Review — I Finished This in Two Sittings

Rating: ★★★★★

Atmosphere Book Review:

Taylor Jenkins Reid has this incredible ability to make you feel like you're living inside someone else's marriage, and Atmosphere is no exception. It's set against the 1980s space shuttle program, so you've got all this NASA drama, all this ambition and history happening, but really it's about two people trying to figure out how much they're willing to sacrifice for each other. And for their dreams.

Reid built her reputation on complicated love stories. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and the Six, Malibu Rising. She writes relationships where both people are right and both people are wrong and you can't look away from the wreckage. Atmosphere might be her most focused version of that. The backdrop of the shuttle program gives everything this ticking-clock urgency. History is happening and these two are trying to hold their marriage together while the whole world is watching.

What makes Reid so good at this is the specificity. She doesn't write "marriage is hard." She writes the exact fight you'd have at 11 PM after a mission briefing, the specific silence in a car driving home from a launch that didn't happen. You feel like you've met these people. You feel like you've been in that kitchen.

I finished this in two sittings because I genuinely could not stop. Reid does this thing where she makes you root for both people even when they want opposite things, and that tension just builds and builds until you're not sure what outcome you're even hoping for anymore. That's the mark of a great relationship novel. You don't get to pick a side.

Five stars, and it's going to be a movie eventually. I'm calling it now.

If You Liked Atmosphere, Try:

• The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal — Alternate history about a woman fighting to become one of the first female astronauts in the 1950s. Same NASA tension, same impossible personal sacrifices.
  

• The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel — Nonfiction about the real women behind Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. The true stories Reid is dramatizing.
  

• Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid — If you haven't read Reid's other work, start here. Same ability to make you feel like you lived inside someone else's most important relationship.

From Luke Stoffel's Shelf

If this book review resonated with you, check out my memoir How to Win a Million Dollars — a story about chasing impossible dreams, finding yourself in unexpected places, and learning what really matters along the way. Learn More: How to Win One Million Dollars

How to Win One Million Dollars and Shit Glitter by Luke Stoffel