Taylor Jenkins Reid continues to be one of my two favorite contemporary novelists

I would say my top two go-to contemporary novelists are Stephen King and Taylor Jenkins Reid. But that’s a loose definition because, with King, I can’t possibly keep up with all his new releases.

Reid, meanwhile, has manageably released five novels since 2017. And each of them is a classic in its own right. (By comparison, King has issued 11 titles in that timeframe.)

Here latest is Atmosphere: A Love Story. For some quick context, the story begins onboard a space shuttle in 1986 with an engineer-focused astronaut named Vanessa making the decision to leave a door open so she can look out of the rocket. It’s a bad move.

Then the story shifts back to seven years previously to show how Vanessa and especially her close friend, the main protagonist Joan, get to that fateful point. The two women’s lives and inner lives are explored in insightful and touching ways that are Reid’s specialty. The book is not terribly insightful into the U.S. space program, but it serves as an interesting backdrop that enhances the premise.

Other key characters along the way are Joan’s selfish younger sister Barbara and Frances, the niece that Joan loves like a daughter. Then there are the other key astronauts Donna (a heartbreaking romancer), Griff (a star at everything), and Lydia (a rude former ER doctor who isn’t well liked). The crew is described as nerds, working jobs that sound like they should be for cowboys. But if that’s what they were, NASA would not be nearly as safe and advanced as it become.

Taking place in the 1980s, Reid lands us back in a time when women’s wants, needs, desires, and professions were truly given unequal and short shrift. While reading the book, which is a pretty quick page-turner, it constantly reminded me how little we’ve progressed and evolved as a society in general since then.

Atmosphere is not as great as Reid’s masterpieces The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (2017) Daisy Jones & the Six (2019), and Malibu Rising (2021), but I do like it a little more than Carrie Soto is Back (2022).

4.5 out of 5 stars