“Let the world be as I see it for just tonight. Where I know I’m mortal, but I’m not sure that you’re not a god.”
Female astronauts. The 1980s. Space, love, and everything in between. This book provides it all. Joan has spent her whole life dreaming about being in the stars. When she’s accepted to train at NASA with her male counterparts, that dream has never been more real. But will gravity be enough to hold her down when the unthinkable happens?
I don’t know if there was a more perfect book than “Atmosphere” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. How am I supposed to continue reading? How will any book ever compare again? Even if I keep asking these questions well into the year, it will have been worth it to have read this story.
It took 16 pages for me to be emotionally invested. It took less than 100 pages for me to fall in love with everyone in the space program. By the end of the book, I was sobbing at every moment from happy to sad.
Reid is such an incredible storyteller. And that’s what she is. A storyteller. When I was reading this or “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,” I wasn’t not watching a story unfold; I was being told how a story unfolds. I’m not dropping myself into the lives of the characters; I’m watching them before, standing helplessly aside, unable to do anything. And somehow in this way, I fall even deeper.
Needless to say, I loved this book. I loved the story. I loved Joan, Vanessa, Griff, and every other character who has left a mark on my heart. I am every emotion under the stars, and to even speak on them would give too much, I fear. Read this book. If you only read one book this year, let it be this one.
