Critic Reviews
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Based on 5 reviews on
The stunning hardcover of Atmosphere features beautiful endpapers and a premium dust jacket!
"Thrilling . . . heartbreaking . . . uplifting . . . the fast-paced, emotionally charged story of one ambitious young woman, finding both her voice and her passion."--Kristin Hannah, author of The Women
"NASA? Space missions? The '80s? This is a collection of all the things I love."--Andy Weir, author of Project Hail Mary and The Martian
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 and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. 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: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.
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.
Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love--this time among the stars.
Christine Pride is a novelist and book editor.
As a big fan of the tv show For All Mankind on @appletv I was primed for this novel about female astronauts in the ‘80s + space + a swooning love….equals tears at the end. Prepare for the beautiful wild ride that is @tjenkinsreid ‘s newest, coming in June. Houston, we have a winner.
"Imagine “Apollo 13” crossed with Kristin Hannah’s “The Women” and you have the gist of Reid’s latest, set in the 1980s space program in Houston... [Reid’s characters are] bold, bighearted and more than willing to test boundaries — atmospheric and otherwise."