An Orbit of One’s Own
Taylor Jenkins Reid has, for the better part of a decade, acted as a cultural archaeologist of American celebrity. With the meticulousness of a historian and the flair of a showrunner, she has excavated the fictionalized lives of Hollywood starlets, rock-and-roll demigods, and tennis champions, constructing entire universes that feel more real than reality itself. Her novels are immersive, compulsively readable ecosystems of fame, ambition, and heartbreak. To read a Taylor Jenkins Reid book is to be granted a backstage pass to a world you thought you knew, only to discover its true, complicated heart. With her latest novel, Atmosphere, Reid turns her gaze from the klieg lights of earthly fame to the cold, unforgiving vacuum of space, and in doing so, has produced her most ambitious, emotionally resonant, and profoundly beautiful work to date.
Set against the high-stakes backdrop of NASA’s space shuttle program in the 1980s, Atmosphere is, on its surface, a story about the final frontier. It is meticulously researched, replete with the technical jargon of orbital mechanics, the brutalist architecture of the Johnson Space Center, and the ever-present, bone-deep terror that comes with strapping human beings to a controlled explosion. Yet, as with all of Reid’s work, the grand historical stage is merely the setting for an intensely personal drama. This is not a story about space, ultimately; it is a story about the invisible, gravitational forces that bind two people together against a universe determined to pull them apart.
The novel centers on Joan Goodwin, a brilliant, unassuming astronomer, and Vanessa Ford, a daring, fiercely talented pilot and aeronautical engineer. They are two of the few women selected for NASA’s astronaut corps, thrust into a world of stoic military men and life-or-death stakes. What unfolds between them is a love story of immense power and devastating secrecy, a relationship that becomes its own double-star system, each woman orbiting the other, providing the light and balance necessary for survival in a hostile environment.
This review will argue that Atmosphere uses the language and laws of astrophysics as a sustained, powerful metaphor for the human heart. Reid masterfully maps the concepts of gravity, orbital decay, escape velocity, and the crushing pressure of an unbreathable atmosphere onto the relational dynamics of Joan and Vanessa. Through a close analysis of their intersecting character arcs, the novel posits that love is its own law of physics—an irresistible pull that can either hold a world together or, under the wrong conditions, tear it apart. This is a story that asks what it costs to defy the forces that seek to keep you grounded, and whether the love of one person can be a universe unto itself. In the silent, weightless expanse, Joan and Vanessa must discover if their connection is enough to build an atmosphere of their own.
The Loneliest Profession
To understand the core of Atmosphere, one must first understand the world it inhabits. Reid’s depiction of the Johnson Space Center in the early 1980s is not merely a backdrop; it is a crucible. This is a world built on brutal dichotomies: the boundless ambition of reaching for the stars and the claustrophobic confinement of a shuttle cabin; the collaborative spirit of a mission team and the cutthroat competition for a seat on that mission; the public face of heroic, all-American astronauts and the private realities of fear, doubt, and forbidden desire. It is, as one character reflects, the loneliest of professions, demanding a level of sacrifice that borders on the monastic.
The narrative architecture of the novel brilliantly reinforces this sense of pressure and impending fate. Reid employs a non-linear structure, beginning in media res on December 29, 1984, during the catastrophic final day of mission STS-LR9. From the opening pages, we are thrown into the chillingly calm chaos of Mission Control as a routine spacewalk turns into a multi-system failure, resulting in a cabin leak and the rapid loss of life. The story then jumps back seven years to trace the journey of Joan and Vanessa from their initial astronaut applications to this fateful moment. This structure is a masterstroke of dramatic irony. Every triumph, every shared secret, every moment of burgeoning love between Joan and Vanessa is shadowed by the reader’s knowledge of the disaster that awaits. It imbues their past with a tragic weight, transforming their story from a simple romance into a countdown. The question is not if tragedy will strike, but how it will reframe everything that came before.
The premise hinges on the unique position of women like Joan and Vanessa within this hyper-masculine institution. They are pioneers, part of the “New Guys,” the historic class that broke the program’s white male mold. But they are also novelties, subject to a scrutiny their male counterparts never face. As astronaut Lydia Danes, a foil to both Joan and Vanessa, astutely observes, they do not have the luxury of representing only themselves. “You cry in front of them and they are going to say, ‘Women can’t handle being in the hot seat.’ And then I get screwed over,” she warns Joan. “We all succeed or fail together.”
This collective burden is the foundational pressure of the novel. For the women of Group 9, every action is weighed, every emotion policed. To be perceived as “touchy,” “meek,” or “bitchy” is a professional death sentence. They must navigate a minefield of casual sexism, from pilots making crude jokes to the systemic barriers that prevent a pilot as skilled as Vanessa from ever taking the commander’s seat simply because she is not military—a path that was closed to women in the first place. This external atmosphere of judgment and limitation is just as dangerous as the vacuum of space. It is within this high-pressure environment that the quiet, introspective astronomer Joan and the fiery, kinetic engineer Vanessa find each other. Their relationship is not an escape from this world, but a reaction to it—a private, breathable space carved out against the odds. The summary of Atmosphere is thus not just a plot, but a collision of forces: the forward momentum of the space program, the gravitational pull of a secret love, and the atmospheric pressure of a society that threatens to crush it.
Character Arcs & Relational Dynamics: The Double-Star System
At the heart of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s narrative universe lies an unwavering fascination with the intricate machinery of human relationships. In Atmosphere, she refines this focus to a near-perfect point, centering the novel’s entire cosmic scope on the gravitational interplay between two extraordinary women. The story is an intimate character study disguised as an epic. To fully appreciate the novel’s depth, one must dissect the individual orbits of Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford before examining the breathtaking, and often terrifying, physics of their shared system. This is a literary review of character arcs at their most potent.
The Quiet Gravity of the Observer: Joan Goodwin’s Geocentric Universe
Joan Goodwin is introduced as a woman who has perfected the art of going unnoticed. An astronomer by trade, she is an observer, more comfortable gazing at distant stars than navigating the terrestrial complexities of human interaction. “Joan knew she was easy to overlook,” Reid writes. “She was average height and a bit stocky. She dressed simply… Joan found a familiar peace in going unnoticed.” This initial characterization is crucial. Joan is not a void; she is a rich inner world—a classically trained pianist, a marathon runner, a gifted portraitist—contained within an unassuming shell. Her universe is geocentric, with its stable, unwavering center being her niece, Frances. Her love for Frances is the primary gravitational force in her life, a responsibility she embraces with a quiet, fierce devotion that defines her.
Her entry into NASA is an act of dormant ambition awakened, but it is her first encounter with Vanessa Ford that truly sets her personal story in motion. In that initial meeting, Joan is analytical, categorizing the people in the room as “dorks and soldiers.” She is still the observer. But when she finds herself sitting across from Vanessa at a bar, something shifts. For the first time, someone is genuinely curious about her passion. As she explains her love for astronomy, Reid gives us a key insight: “You’re smiling as you’re talking,” Vanessa notes. Joan’s response, “I am?”, reveals a woman so accustomed to containing her inner world that she is unaware of its outward expression.
This exchange establishes the fundamental dynamic that will define their relationship: Vanessa acts as the catalyst, the external force that draws Joan’s brilliance out into the open. Joan, in turn, provides the context, the meaning, the “why.” She is the one who can explain that looking at the stars is looking into the past, that “we are the stars, and the stars are us.” Their relationship becomes the space where Joan’s quiet gravity can finally exert its true, formidable pull.
Her arc is one of planetary realignment. As she falls in love with Vanessa, the center of her universe shifts. The change is described in physical, almost electric terms. After their first night together, Joan feels an “electric current running from her chest down her legs… It was hers.” This is not just romantic affection; it is a fundamental change in her personal physics. The love she feels for Vanessa does not replace her love for Frances, but it reconfigures the entire system. She moves from a stable, predictable orbit around a single point to becoming part of a more complex and dynamic binary system, forever altering her trajectory.
In Defiance of the Pull: Vanessa Ford’s Escape Velocity
If Joan is defined by gravity, Vanessa Ford is defined by thrust. She is a character in constant, powerful motion, a pilot and engineer whose very essence is a rebellion against the forces that hold her down. Her ambition is a raw, kinetic energy, fueled by the legacy of her father, a naval pilot who died a war hero when she was six. “I think most of my life I’ve been both drawn to and terrified of the idea of being just like him,” she confesses to Joan. This admission is the key to her psyche. Her entire life has been an attempt to achieve escape velocity—from the grief of her past, the constraints of her gender, and ultimately, from the pull of Earth itself.
Her self-destructive past—drugs, stolen cars, promiscuity—was not a search for oblivion, but an attempt to feel something other than sadness. “If you find a way to make yourself absolutely terrified,” she explains, “there’s no room for any other feeling.” Flying became the one act that transmuted that terror into peace. For Vanessa, piloting is not a job; it is a state of being, the only place where she feels truly herself, free from the world’s judgment. Her primary conflict within NASA is that the system refuses to recognize her for who she is. Despite her prodigious talent, she is relegated to the back seat, a “glorified mechanic,” because she lacks the military credentials that were never available to her as a woman.
Her philosophy is perfectly encapsulated in her distinction between bravery and courage, a lesson from her father. “Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.” Vanessa is not fearless; she is courageous. She feels fear intensely—of failing, of being grounded, of the perilous test during water survival training—but her defining characteristic is her will to push through it. This philosophy is not just an abstract belief; it is the operating principle that will govern her actions in the novel’s climax, providing a powerful and inevitable foreshadowing of her decision aboard the crippled shuttle Navigator.
Joan’s effect on Vanessa is profound. Joan’s steady, gravitational pull is something Vanessa has never encountered. It doesn’t seek to hold her down but to give her a reason to return. Joan becomes her new anchor, her Polaris. The desire to fly out of the atmosphere remains, but it is now coupled with an equally strong desire to come home. “You changed what I wanted, and what I thought was possible,” Vanessa tells Joan. This is the crux of her transformation. Her ambition is no longer solely about escape; it’s about creating a world—a life—with Joan that is worth returning to. This internal shift sets the stage for her ultimate sacrifice, transforming an act of professional defiance into a profound act of love.
Love as a Law of Physics: The Symbiotic System
The true genius of Atmosphere lies in how it portrays the relationship between Joan and Vanessa not as a simple romance, but as a symbiotic, self-sustaining system—a double star. They are not merely lovers; they are essential counterparts, each providing what the other lacks in a universe that demands complete self-sufficiency.
This is most beautifully illustrated in the pivotal stargazing scene at Brazos Bend. Here, the metaphorical becomes literal as Joan maps the constellations for Vanessa. In this scene, Joan shares her soul, articulating her cosmic philosophy that connects every atom in their bodies to the stars above. This act of profound intellectual and spiritual intimacy creates the safety for Vanessa to share her deepest vulnerability: the story of her father’s death and her lifelong struggle with his legacy. It is a perfect microcosm of their entire relationship: Joan provides the celestial map, the context and the wonder, which allows Vanessa to navigate her own terrestrial pain. Joan is the “why,” Vanessa is the “how.” Joan understands the universe; Vanessa builds and flies the machines that traverse it.
This dynamic reaches its apotheosis during the 1984 disaster. The narrative structure, which has been building to this moment, finally converges, and their roles are made manifest. Joan, as CAPCOM, is the ultimate observer—the calm, grounding voice from Earth, the only lifeline connecting the shuttle to home. Her job is to be the unwavering center of gravity for a situation spiraling out of control. Vanessa, alone and conscious aboard the dying ship, must become the ultimate pilot, making an impossible choice. Her decision to defy Jack’s command and attempt a risky reentry to save Lydia is the culmination of her entire character arc. It is the ultimate act of courage.
Their final exchange over the open NASA channel before ionization blackout is one of the most powerful sequences Reid has ever written. It is a love letter coded in the language of their shared life. When Vanessa talks about David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” she focuses on the line, “Tell my wife I love her very much,” and Joan completes the thought: “And then he says, ‘She knows.'” In this single exchange, they affirm everything. Vanessa is saying “I love you,” and Joan is saying “I know you do, and I love you too.” Joan’s final speech, where she lists everything Vanessa wants to come home to—from Joni Mitchell albums to playing Scrabble with Frances—is her final, desperate attempt to pull Vanessa back into her orbit, to give her every reason to fight her way through the fire of reentry. It is a stunning, heartbreaking, and ultimately triumphant expression of a love that has become its own force of nature.
The Atmosphere of the Unspoken
While Atmosphere presents itself as a sweeping love story and a high-stakes thriller, its most potent and provocative argument is a critique of the very air its characters are forced to breathe. The novel’s title refers not just to the thin, life-giving shell that protects our planet, but to the oppressive social and professional atmosphere of the 1980s that suffocates the love between Joan and Vanessa, forcing it into the shadows. The central tragedy of this book is not the explosion in space, but the necessity of silence and the devastating compromises demanded by a world that equates difference with deviance. The most daring question Atmosphere asks is not whether its characters can survive a cabin leak, but whether love can survive in a vacuum of acceptance.
The novel’s fulcrum is not a technical malfunction, but a quiet, chilling conversation in an office. When Antonio Lima, the director of the Astronaut Office, summons Joan, he delivers the coded threat that defines their existence. He speaks of security clearances and the risk of being “morally compromised,” warning that “the appearance of sexual deviation would make any of our astronauts vulnerable to such a blackmail.” This conversation is the novel’s moment of ideological crisis. It is not subtext; it is the explicit articulation of the system’s rules. The danger to Joan and Vanessa is not just disapproval, but professional annihilation. Their love, in the eyes of their employer and their government, is a liability, a weakness to be exploited.
This threat forces the novel’s most painful conflict. In an act of love born from fear, Joan attempts to sever their connection. “I will not allow you to give up everything you have worked toward. It’s over,” she tells Vanessa, believing that sacrificing their relationship is the only way to save Vanessa’s career—the dream she has pursued with singular, fiery devotion. This moment is a devastating portrayal of internalized oppression. The system has worked so perfectly that Joan is willing to become its enforcer, to destroy her own happiness for the sake of conforming to its hostile demands.
However, the novel’s true thesis emerges in Vanessa’s rebellion. Her response, screamed from a payphone across the street, is a rejection not only of Joan’s decision but of the entire oppressive system. “No. Absolutely not,” she declares. “I don’t care what Antonio said. I don’t care what they can take from me. I don’t care if they never let me set foot in the fucking space shuttle ever again… I will not leave you and Frances.” This is Vanessa’s true moment of “escape velocity.” It is not about leaving Earth; it is about breaking free from the gravitational pull of fear and societal judgment. She chooses a universe of two over the one offered by NASA. She refuses to let their love be a casualty of a prejudiced world.
This reframes the entire narrative. The story becomes less about hiding and more about surviving in defiance. The ending, therefore, is not merely a technical triumph but a moral one. As Vanessa pilots the crippled shuttle through the inferno of reentry, guided only by Joan’s voice, their love is no longer a secret liability but the very instrument of survival. Their coded, deeply personal conversation over an open NASA channel, for all the world to hear, is a quiet but powerful act of piercing that oppressive atmosphere. The survival of their love becomes as miraculous, and as hard-won, as the survival of the shuttle itself. Reid argues that the greatest courage is not flying into the unknown voids of space, but loving openly and fiercely in a world that tells you that you shouldn’t exist. Atmosphere is a testament to the fact that love, when it is true, creates its own environment, its own breathable air, even in the coldest and most unforgiving of vacuums.
Finding Your Polaris in the Modern Sky
Though set four decades in the past, Atmosphere resonates with a startling and poignant clarity in 2025. The specific historical context—the Cold War, the dawn of the shuttle era, the absence of cell phones—grounds the narrative in a distinct time, but its core thematic concerns feel achingly contemporary. Taylor Jenkins Reid has crafted a novel that, while looking back at the stars of the 1980s, provides a map for navigating the complex social constellations of today. It is a story about the immense pressure to conform, the courage to forge an authentic life, and the enduring power of human connection, making it profoundly relevant to a modern audience.
The challenges Joan and Vanessa face as women in a male-dominated STEM field are, depressingly, still familiar. The casual sexism, the need to work twice as hard for half the recognition, the tightrope walk of being assertive without being labeled “bitchy”—these are battles women continue to fight in boardrooms, laboratories, and workplaces around the world. The novel serves as a powerful reminder of the pioneers who chipped away at these systemic barriers, and a sobering acknowledgment of the work that remains. Any reader who has ever felt overlooked, underestimated, or forced to laugh at an inappropriate joke to keep the peace will find a deep, validating kinship with the women of Group 9.
More profoundly, the novel’s exploration of a hidden LGBTQ+ relationship speaks directly to the ongoing struggle for acceptance and the psychological toll of the closet. While enormous strides have been made since the 1980s, the fear of professional reprisal, social ostracism, or family rejection remains a painful reality for many. The conversation with Antonio Lima, where love is framed as a security risk, echoes modern-day debates where identity is politicized and weaponized. Atmosphere masterfully captures the exhausting calculus of a secret life: the constant vigilance, the coded language, the ache of not being able to hold a hand in public. It is a story that will resonate with anyone who has had to hide a fundamental part of themselves to survive, and it stands as a powerful argument for the courage of living an authentic life.
So, is Atmosphere a good book, and is it worth reading? For the devoted Taylor Jenkins Reid reader, the answer is an unequivocal yes. It contains all the hallmarks of her work: immersive world-building, complex and unforgettable female characters, and an emotionally devastating narrative. However, this book is also her most mature and challenging. It asks more of its reader, trading some of the breezy glamour of Malibu Rising or Daisy Jones & The Six for a deeper, more existential weight.
The ideal reader for Atmosphere is someone who is ready to be moved and challenged in equal measure. It is for the lover of literary historical fiction, for the character-driven drama enthusiast, and for anyone fascinated by the intersection of the epic and the intimate. It is a novel for those who look up at the night sky and feel a sense of wonder, and for those who have ever found a universe in the eyes of another person. It answers the question of its worth by proving itself to be not just a good story, but a necessary one—a guiding star, a Polaris, for navigating the often-dark skies of our own time.
A Universe of Two
In the final analysis, Atmosphere is a monumental achievement, a novel that solidifies Taylor Jenkins Reid’s position as one of the most vital and compelling storytellers of her generation. She has taken the grand, impersonal canvas of space exploration and painted upon it an intimate, deeply human portrait of love and sacrifice. The novel succeeds because it never loses sight of its own center of gravity: the relationship between Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford. Their love story is the engine of the narrative, the force that propels them through triumph and tragedy, and the lens through which the book’s most profound ideas are focused.
Reid’s use of astrophysics as a governing metaphor is not a mere literary device; it is the very soul of the book. The concepts of gravitational pull, orbital mechanics, and the life-sustaining properties of an atmosphere are seamlessly woven into the emotional fabric of the story, elevating a personal drama into something cosmic and universal. We feel the crushing G-force of societal expectation, the weightlessness of newfound love, and the terrifying heat of reentry into a world that is not guaranteed to welcome you home.
This is a novel about the courage it takes not only to journey to the stars, but to build a life on Earth under hostile conditions. It is a searing critique of a system that would deem love a liability and a heartfelt celebration of those who refuse to accept such a decree. The ending is not a simple happily-ever-after, but something far more powerful: a hard-won survival, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the defiant power of love to create its own breathable air.
Atmosphere is a book that will stay with you long after you turn the final page. It will make you look up at the night sky with new eyes, to see not just distant points of light, but a reflection of our own fragile, interconnected, and beautiful existence. It is a story that reminds us that while humanity may reach for the moon and the stars, the most profound discoveries, the most breathtaking universes, are often found in the quiet, gravitational pull of a single other person. It is, without a doubt, a masterpiece.
FAQ Section:
- Q1: What is the book Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid about?
- A1: Atmosphere is a historical fiction novel about the intense, secret love story between two female NASA astronauts, Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford, set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program and a tragic in-orbit disaster.
- Q2: Who are the main characters in Atmosphere?
- A2: The main characters are Joan Goodwin, a brilliant and quiet astronomer, and Vanessa Ford, a gifted and daring pilot and aeronautical engineer. Their complex relationship forms the core of the story.
- Q3: Is the ending of Atmosphere explained? What happens to the crew?
- A3: (Spoilers) After a catastrophic explosion, Vanessa Ford defies orders to attempt a risky reentry to save her crewmate, Lydia Danes. The shuttle is severely damaged, but in a tense conclusion, Vanessa successfully lands the Navigator, saving herself and Lydia, while being guided home by Joan’s voice from Mission Control.
- Q4: Is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid a good book? Is it worth reading?
- A4: Yes, Atmosphere is one of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s most ambitious and emotionally powerful novels. It is worth reading for its deeply moving characters, meticulous historical detail, and its profound exploration of love, sacrifice, and ambition in the face of societal pressure.
