My Favorite Read of November 2025: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Title: Atmosphere

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Publication Date: 6/3/25

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Description:

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.

My Thoughts:

I expected to like this book. I like Taylor Jenkins Reid. I find space exploration interesting, but I haven’t read a lot about it. I like stories of strong women. I expected to like this novel. But I didn’t expect to love it this much.

This book was an emotional roller coaster. There were moments of joy, frustration, anger and sadness. It is amazing what all astronauts go through, but the first women experienced a level of pressure that is unfathomable to most of us. I found the information about NASA training fascinating. Joan is a strong character who keeps fighting to succeed, while still maintaining sensitivity and compassion. This story will stay with me for a long time.