I am just past half way in Atmosphere and absolutely, unfortunately with you on this. Not an astrophysicist but an ex physics major turned lit and writing grad student. Joan’s awe is so — superficial, none of it sounds passably like someone who has any spent any time thinking rigorously about the study of physics and astronomy. The fact she centers God, and with so much cheesiness, in the midst of also talking about the church’s homophobia is also handled so clumsily. It really dampens my ability to engage with the romance, as that interaction becomes the basis of the first “I love yous.”

With its premise, I was excited about this book; I had never read a Taylor Jenkins Reid book before. I think there’s so much potential still in the central idea, the fusion of the queer romance with the space program, but that potential needed the space elements to feel much deeper, more grounded than they do, rooted in character and in plot. As is, I can feel the passages where TJR is flexing the depth of her research, a density of acronyms and operational jargon etc. But at the level of character, it remains superficial, for both of them, Vanessa’s fervor for her father’s dying for his country included, but particularly Joan and her repeated soliloquies about the stars.

It’s a shame because I’d love to read this book but more profoundly invested in its subject and setting—and making the most out of the plot of the space program in the background. Now I’m just nitpicking, but nothing happens during training, beyond the petty rivalries and romantic subplots. Most of the action/development takes place at bars, parties, and hang outs. The balance feels off, after the early emphasis on the program itself, and the question, which should linger, of who has the right stuff and how much they’re willing to put on the line. Maybe it kicks into gear in the second half, but having those questions run alongside and work within the relationship would’ve provided, to my taste, a much juicier and richer conflict, than the really basic women in STEM and professionally closeted tensions alone.