Hiding Under the Stars

Atmosphere is a double entendre of a novel—its title as layered as the story it tells. On the surface, it refers to the Earth’s atmosphere, a scientific force that underpins the book’s central plot. But just beneath that lies a quieter, more suffocating meaning: the atmosphere that cloaked queer lives in secrecy during the 1980s. Specifically, the emotional weather Joan and Vanessa endured. The air between them was electrified by love, yet heavy with fear. In the public eye, they were colleagues. Friends. Nothing more. But the truth—the intimacy, the passion, the unwavering bond—was known to those closest to them. And still, it had to be hidden.

Taylor Jenkins Reid doesn’t just tell a story—she revives a history we’ve all lived in some way, whether we recognize it or not. With Atmosphere, she takes readers into the chilling quiet of the closet. The door is closed, the air is stale, and yet inside, two women are blazing with love. This is what it meant to be queer in a world that didn’t want to see you. This is what it meant to protect your heart by silencing it.

Reading Atmosphere as an adult felt like peeling back a layer of my own childhood—realizing all the things I didn’t yet have words for. It made me think of all the Joans and Vanessas who lived and loved under the radar, who risked everything for stolen moments. It made me ache for them, and yet admire them in the same breath.

What Taylor Jenkins Reid achieves here is nothing short of masterful. Yes, she’s known for her compelling historical fiction—she’s given us unforgettable icons in Daisy, Evelyn, and Carrie. But Atmosphere feels different. It doesn’t just span time; it cuts right through it. The novel pulses with emotional intensity. It doesn’t romanticize the past—it dares to show the bruises beneath the brilliance.

Joan narrates with a voice so rich, so honest, you feel like you’re right there with her. You hear what she hears. You flinch at what she flinches at. And when she lets herself fall—really fall—for Vanessa, it feels like the sun breaking through the clouds. Their connection isn’t just romantic; it’s elemental. But it’s also fragile, because it’s built in a world that refuses to acknowledge it.

There’s a specific kind of heartbreak that comes from hiding who you love. TJR captures it in glances, in coded language, in the agonizing pause before one woman reaches for the other’s hand. The stakes feel impossibly high, not because of melodrama, but because of the quiet oppression woven into every page. You start to understand that love isn’t just an act of devotion—it’s an act of rebellion.

And yet, this isn’t a sad book. It’s hopeful, too. It reminds us that love finds a way. Even in closets. Even under scrutiny. Even when the atmosphere is heavy with shame.

What makes this novel so powerful is how it lingers—how it leaves you thinking about the people you never got to know fully, the secrets they carried, the love stories that lived in the margins. TJR gives those stories oxygen. She names what so many were forced to bury.

As a reader, I didn’t just enjoy Atmosphere—I felt changed by it. I carried it with me like a memory I hadn’t lived, but somehow recognized. This novel isn’t just a romance with an HEA—it’s a reckoning. These are the stories that fuel Pride, that prove visibility isn’t a luxury—it’s survival. It’s for the queer women who loved in secret, and for those of us finally able to read stories like this out loud.

This isn’t just a novel. It’s a mirror. It’s a time capsule. It’s a love letter to the queer women who came before us, and to the ones who had to love in secret so that one day, we wouldn’t have to.

I was nearly eight years old when Sally Ride became the first American woman in space. I remember the broadcast—bright, hopeful, monumental. What I didn’t understand then was the magnitude of that moment, not just for women in STEM, but for women like Sally, like me. For women who loved other women. For women who couldn’t say so out loud. I didn’t yet know that silence could be its own form of violence. Although Atmosphere isn’t a historical fiction about the life of Sally Ride, it’s a celebration of all the female astronauts who shattered that glass ceiling during the Space Shuttle Program—a story like no other. Like no other.