Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Prolific storyteller Taylor Jenkins Reid has now turned her attention toward outer space in her new novel "Atmosphere." The U.S. space program has long been portrayed as a male-dominated world, both through its technicians and astronauts. The iconic male-movie-star space movies such as "The Right Stuff" and "Apollo 13" always come to mind when I think of space. My decades long love for Sam Shepard never wavers. "Atmosphere" explores, however, a different side of the space program, through the eyes of its female participants. Set in the 1980s, this novel explores the Space Shuttle program at a time in which Jeff's own dad Fred Morris was making spacesuit backpacks for NASA. The story's main character is Joan Goodwin, a physics and astronomy professor from Rice University, who dreams of the stars every night. She is happy in her life of academia until she sees a NASA advertisement recruiting women scientists. After being selected from thousands of applicants, Joan begins her training at Houston's Johnson Space Center, along side fellow scientists, pilots and mission specialists. As the candidates train to become astronauts, some become friends, and others become enemies. Life on the ground becomes more complicated than all the stars in outer space. "Atmosphere" was one of the most anticipated reads of the summer, and I enjoyed every page. Fast paced, with complex characters, it is a fresh look at the U.S. space program, full of triumphs, tragedies and heroes, both men and women. To buy this book on Amazon click here.