Spaceflight has a gender problem. Depending on how you count, 700-ish people have been to space, but only about 100 of them are women. The recent all-female Blue Origin flight that included Katy Perry saw more women go to space than during the whole 1960s and 70s.
Female spaceflight took off slowly only in the 1980s, so this decade is a perfect setting for Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. The novel features Joan and Vanessa, astronauts who know they must work twice as hard as their male peers. The twist is their secret relationship. My mind boggled at the sad fact we could launch people into space, but not let them be in love.
Jenkins Reid is superb at conjuring characters in specific times and places. The book opens with a Gravity-style disaster, then rewinds to reveal the women’s history.
I was impatient to get back to the action, but by the end all I cared about was the leads. If you’re sick of sci-fi stuffed with big ideas but paper-thin characters, this is for you.
