Back in June of last year, I — along with one of my closest friends — attended an in-person event featuring Taylor Jenkins Reid and her just-published (at that time) novel, Atmosphere: A Love Story. 

Friends, I have been waiting to read this novel. Waiting because a novel set in the 1980s, the early days of NASA’s space shuttle program, the time when NASA finally decided that astronauts need not only be white men, is a novel I really, really want to read. And love. 

So I waited until the hoopla quieted down. 

I started this book during our spring break trip. And while I didn’t get nearly as much reading time as I had hoped for on that trip, I started the novel and didn’t want to put it down. 

From attending that author talk last year, I know the author did her research. You can tell. While much of the story is based on fact, the individual characters, the love story, and the space mission at the heart of the novel are all fiction. 

Friends, I finished reading this book and immediately wanted to start to read it again. That’s how good it was. It is. 

This week, I’ll try not to include too many favorite passages. It might be hard to do. My copy of the book has many red sticky notes.  

“It would be easy to make the case that humans are ill-equipped to be in space. Whatever led to our design, it was not meant for this. But Joan sees it as the exact opposite.
“Human intelligence and curiosity, our persistence and resilience, our capacity for long-term planning, and our ability to collaborate have led the human race here.”

“Astronomy was history. Because space was time. And that was the thing she loved most about the universe itself. When you look at the red star Antares in the southern sky, you are looking over thirty-three hundred trillion miles away. But you are also looking more than five hundred and fifty years into the past. Antares is so far away that its light takes five hundred and fifty years to reach your eye on Earth. Five hundred and fifty light-years away. So when you look out at the sky, the farther you can see, the further back you are looking in time. The space between you and the star is time.”

“Being human was such a lonely endeavor. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another. Joan was always moved by the fact that everything — all matter on Earth and beyond, up past the atmosphere, going as far as the edges of the universe, as it expands farther and farther away from us — is made from the same elements. We are made of the same things as the stars and the planets. Remembering that connection brought Joan comfort. It also brought her some sense of responsibility. And what was kinship but that? Comfort and responsibility.”

“Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.” 

“‘I’m excited,’ Vanessa said, closing the gap between them. ‘I want to take you everywhere. And do everything with you. And ask you every single question that’s been on my mind for months. And I want to know when you knew what was happening between us and I want to tell you when I knew. And I want to hold your hand in a quiet corner and I want to lie in bed and hear your heartbeat through your chest. I want to bring you coffee in bed. And I want to hear you tell me anything you’ve always wanted to tell someone. Because you know that you’ve met someone who desperately wants to listen.’”

“Later, before they fell asleep, Joan said, ‘Happiness is so hard to come by. I don’t understand why anyone would begrudge anyone else for managing to find some of it.’
“‘That’s because you’re too good for the world you love so much,’ Vanessa said.” 

“‘I can wake up every single day and choose you, over and over and over again. If you’re in bed next to me, I will take your hand. If you are not, I will go find you. I will spend the rest of my life, if I get that lucky, seeking you out. Not because I promised you or because you’re there. But because I will want to. I will want to be beside you. Every day. Forever.’”

“Space belonged to no one, but Earth belonged to all of them.” 

Oh friends, there is so much more I could include. The passages about Joan’s niece, Frances, and the special relationship they share. The passages about the way Joan loves her niece — “Every day, you can wake up and go to bed knowing there is someone whose heart is bursting, barely able to contain how much they love you.” 

Which is all to say I loved this book.

Friends, have you read Atmosphere? Do we share any favorite passages?

And if you haven’t yet read it, is Atmosphere on your want-to-read list?

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.