June 27, 2026sarahylockwood

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Rate: 4.5/5

Medium: Audiobook

Overview (No Spoilers):

My brilliant friend Stephanie sent me Atmosphere to occupy myself while I was recovering after my double massectomy. This was the perfect recovery read. I was absolutely hooked, finishing this novel in just a few days.

A historical fiction, Atmosphere follows Joan Goodwin as she navigates the male driven field of STEM in the early 1980s. Goodwin finds her way from a defeating professor job to becoming a NASA astronaut candidate where she is challenged in ways she could never have imagined. Despite excelling in everything NASA, Goodwin has to precariously balance the complicated web of family duty that are often at odds with her personal ambitions. Reid does an excellent job making the especially slim thresholds of failure palpable for the women candidates. With many competing pressures on Goodwin, the feeling that something has to cave towards the end of this read made the anxiety mount with every interaction.

Goodwin is also on a journey of self discovery, finding love and her own desires for the first time. Reid beautifully executes the building tension between Ford and Goodwin, along with highlighting the dangers of their hidden romance due to their profession and the time period. Ford and Goodwin are different in so many ways but fit well. I enjoyed both of their perspectives as their views of the world brought different insights. You can’t help but root for them from the very first interaction.

The supporting cast slowly develops, in part due to Goodwin’s penchant for being introverted. However, as Goodwin builds bridges and connections with every interaction, the disaster we were given a glimpse of brings on ever increasing levels of foreboding. Cue so many tears.

After a long drive down to our family farm, I had a mere 10 minutes left in the book as I was getting ready to pull in the driveway. With how intense the story was at this point, I sped back up and utterly confused my Dad in order to drive around the block a few times in order to find out how the story ends. Ugh. The ending is so suspenseful and results in ugly tears. I have a hard time remembering being that filled with anxiety with just a few minutes left in a book. I still can feel the emotions that Atmosphere’s ending triggered, weeks after finishing the book. 

Overall, Atmosphere is a beautiful story about bad ass, inspirational women from the 1980s who have to navigate a complicated period in history while stuck in the mire of obligations and ambition. When tragedy strikes, the most important parts of life rise to the surface, though it might be too late to act.

Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound): 

  • What was the fall out from Ford’s  insubordinate actions?
  • How terrible were those deaths and the people they left behind on earth? Ugh, Poor Hank and Donna.
  • Did Lydia recover?
  • Was Goodwin able to keep her niece, Frances? Did she ever come out to her niece? 
  • Could Ford and Goodwin stay in a relationship? Were they done at NASA?
  • Did Barbara regret giving up Frances?

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