Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I know it sounds dramatic to some people when I say that a book was so good it changes who you are as a person. But for me it genuinely feels like it when I read a really good book. Whenever I read a book like Atmosphere, it leaves me a different person because I’ve learned from it. I feel like I lived new experiences from it and see some new perspectives. I might think about things I've never thought about before. Books like that are really important in my opinion.
Atmosphere is one of those books where I could tell early on that this would stay with me for a while. I was only 60 pages in when I started crying for the first time while reading this book and realising that this will be a heavy one for me. I had to take breaks from reading this because it just consumed me so much. I had to ground myself in the real world for a few moments in between reading.
I‘m currently deep in a astronomy/ astrophysics hyperfixation. I’ve developed such a deep fascination with space I can’t even really put it into words. And reading this book has made my brain so happy. Reading Joan‘s thoughts and feelings about astronomy made me so giddy!! Since my fixation on astronomy started a few weeks ago I’ve been looking for a book exactly like this. This book had such a deep fascination with space and it was depicted in such a meaningful way that I couldn’t help but feel connected to this book on some level. I‘m still new to astronomy and learning new things about it every single day, this book taught me stuff and it also described what it feels like to look at the stars and feel so insignificant but in such a fascinating way. It’s hard to but into words what thinking about space brings out in me but this book did a pretty good job at it.
Atmosphere isn’t just about one thing. It’s not just about space and astronomy even though one would think a 340 page book couldn’t make so many different topics feel like they’re the big main theme? It’s also about showing up for the people you love and choosing your family. It’s about difficult family dynamics and love that’s bigger than everything else. It’s about grief and losing people you love. Its about the difficulty of loving another woman in the 1980s.
One thing that stood out to me was Frances' and Joan's relationship and the way Joan shows up for her. It was truly was everything. And that even though Joan’s love for Frances is so huge it still can’t quite replace the love Frances needs from her mum. It doesn’t replace the fact that Joan isn’t her mum. And doesn’t it feel stupid sometimes? That some title, some biological factor decides over how someone feels, over the fact that Frances will probably forever feel like she’s not truly worthy of love, just because her mother couldn’t get her shit together. Even though Joan chose to show up for her every single day.
I think this book won’t be everybody’s cup of tea but for me it was exactly the right book at exactly the right time.