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sabrina_lindsay 's review for:
Atmosphere
by Taylor Jenkins Reid
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Well. 🫣 Maybe my expectations were too high after seeing so many stellar reviews, but I wanted somuch more from this book. The last 10% caught my interest, but before that, I struggled to even want to pick it back up. 😬 My gripes, in no particular order:
- I appreciated the research the author clearly did about space and NASA, and I enjoyed those sections, but at times it felt like we got way into the weeds. 😵💫
- I liked the dual timelines, but the “present-day” timeline started too early, before I really knew or cared about the characters.
- I wanted SO much more from the romance. For me, it all felt too simple given how complex the situation was, especially for the time period. Joan should have had to give serious thought to who she was (or thought she was) and what such a huge decision meant for her life, both personally and professionally. Instead, it felt like in the blink of an eye she was just like, well, okay then!Maybe I shouldn’t have expected a grittier story from a TJR romance…but I did. And it all felt surface-level in a way that was hard to ignore.
- Barbara!? What an absolute ahole. And poor Frances! Honestly, I felt so bad for Frannie near the end that those scenes were hard to read because they hurt my heart. (But if I’m being honest, I’d have traded the family drama for more depth in the romance. 😂)
- The ending. I know the rules of a romance novel and therefore where we were headed, but I wanted the realism of the other option. IYKYK. 🤷🏻♀️
- I really would have loved an epilogue. Given how the book ends, I wanted some kind of follow-up about the other characters.