This book had me so emotional by the end that I could hardly speak. It is an emotional rollercoaster, buckle up because you won’t want to stop reading but you really really will feel like you’ve been put through the wringer by the end of it.
It’s a new kind of world we find ourselves in with Taylor Jenkins Reid’s latest novel. She has departed from her usual style and evolved into something more mature, considered and ambitious (and yet her previous novels were brilliant too). It’s not her usual historical moment focus and although it’s a romance it’s contemporary with almost a literary fiction-esque undertone. If you removed the Author from the cover I would swear blind this was a Jodie Picoult novel by the end of it.
Incredibly careful attention to detail, characterisation, setting and research, make this book such a treat (until it rips your heart out). The gruelling and rigorous training for the astronauts, the sacrifices for love and family that must be made, the risks that they take and ultimately, the service they’re giving, are all uncovered in this novel, probably the first of its kind.
It’s an immersive portrayal of the culture of NASA in the 1980s. You won’t believe it, given it wasn’t that long ago, but it’s true. There are brilliant supporting characters creating a cast of unforgettable women and there is a very authentic representation of the challenges faced by women in STEM. Combined with the art of tension building, the ambitious scope, and structure of the novel, this is just one incredible book. If it doesn’t make it to the big screen, it’ll be an injustice in literature.
About the Book
In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilots Hank Redmond and John Griffin; mission specialist Lydia Danes; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.
Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.
Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars
About The Author
Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author best known for her novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, One True Loves, Malibu Rising, and Carrie Soto Is Back.
Purchase the Book
This book can be purchased in our store either on its own or in a cosy Book Box. Whilst stocks last, the Independent Bookshop Exclusive Edition is available to pre order.
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