The book starts in a simple enough fashion. Joan Goodwin is a professor at Rice University who is obsessed with the stars. When NASA announces that it is recruiting its first cohort of women scientists for the Space Shuttle Programme in the 1980s, Joan feels an unexpected pull: to be one among the few to go to space. Selected from thousands of applicants, she begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, where she forms friendships with a talented and equally brilliant group of fellow candidates. At the Center, Joan discovers unexplored parts of herself and finds a passion—and love—she had never imagined she possessed. But everything changes in an instant on a mission STS-LR9, and Joan’s understanding of the observable universe and her place in it is put to the test.
While the setting may suggest a space thriller, Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere is something more delicate and surprising. Set in the high-stakes, adrenaline-filled backdrop of NASA’s Space Shuttle Programme, Atmosphere is less a ‘woman in space’ novel than a meditation on love—tender, layered, queer love that arrives at a time when it is unacceptable, and in a place which kills ambition.
While this may feel unexpected—even disappointing—to some readers, it is an intentional choice. Reid has shown time and again her ability to craft fully fleshed worlds (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and The Six) and to make a high-concept, technical structure feel intimate and alive (Carrie Soto Is Back). In Atmosphere, her first novel since coming out as bisexual, she turns her focus toward queer love with quiet conviction.
The prose sparkles with warmth and urgency. It is compulsively readable, placing readers right among the ASCANs (Astraunaut Candidates) as they endure drills and training and share intimate conversations in off-duty hangouts. Reid doesn’t romanticise NASA, but instead shows it for what it was in the 1980s—sexist, queerphobic, and brutal. While exploring queer love in such a restrictive space, Reid writes, “What they had together was a lit candle, and the wind could be fierce.”
The book introduces us to characters like Frances, turning Joan from an ambitious astronaut to a loving aunt. Joan’s relationship with her sister Barbara is a subplot that looks at the lives of astronauts beyond their work.
The book’s structure builds momentum by weaving flash-forwards into the narrative. As the timelines come closer and connections between the characters deepen, a sense of impending doom creates an addictive uneasiness.
Unlike Reid’s previous novels, which explored public personas and performance—be it on stage or in sports—Atmosphere faces inwards. It is a diversion from Reid’s home turf of spectacle. Rooted in restraint, it leaves us with two women in love, training to fly among the stars but still grounded by fear, duty, and desire. It reminds us that space is vast—but love, too, is a kind of gravity.