Atmosphere, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

Characters
Joan Goodwin Barbara – younger sister Frances – Barbara’s daughter   Daniel – Barbara’s new husband   Joan on a space flight that launched in November 1984.	1979 – 1984 – NASA shuttle program
	Group 9 – new astronauts (total 16): Donna Fitzgerald John Griff Lydia Danes Vanessa Ford – aeronautical engineer and commercial piolet Joan Goodwin – astronomer   Antonio Lima – director of flight at Astronaut Office
Space Flight – December 1984
Navigator Spacecraft Crew: Steve Hagen – commander Hank Redmond – pilot Mission Specialists: John Griffin Lydia Danes Vanessa Ford   Mission Control: Joan Goodwin – CAPCOM Jack Katowski – Flight director Ray Stone – flight surgeon Greg Ullman – EECOM

 

NOTE: Page numbers are from the hardback edition.

1.      Discuss the various characters.  Did any of the others stick out to you besides Joan and Vanessa?

2.      Was there anything Joan could do to improve her relationship with Barbara?  Why couldn’t they understand each other?

3.      Did you learn anything about the space program?  What have you read previously about the program?  Do you have any specific memories about our space program?

4.      When Joan and Vanessa were astronaut candidates, everything they did was observed all of the time and all behavior recorded.   How would that feel?

5.      Did you understand Vanessa’s decision to risk her own life to try to save Lydia?

6.      Did you like the way the author inserted science in the text?  For example, when Barbara got engaged, the author wrote diamonds were not the strongest metal in the universe compared to the hardness of lonsdaleite from an asteroid that struck Earth in 1967.

7.      This story had multiple storylines.  Which ones stood out to you?  Did the author address each one in a thoughtful way?

a.      A love story between two women and the hardships faced in this time period as well as at NASA

b.      The difficulty of being a woman in the space program during the time of the novel  (The author specifically mentioned Sally Ride and the consequences if she had made a mistake on pages 223-224.)

c.      The physical and mental courage required of the astronauts

d.      The difficulty of being a single parent

e.      Sibling rivalry

8.      The author also addressed many deeper ideas and thoughts such as these.  Did anything else stand out to you?

a.      While Joan and others were in the plane experiencing weightlessness, she thought “Admitting you were afraid took more guts that pretending you weren’t…The world had decided that to be fallible was weak.  But we are all fallible.  The strong ones are the ones who accept it” (page 102).

b.      When Joan was on her flight, she and Harrison (crewmate) were looking down on earth and he said, “Hard to believe any one person has any significance…Human life is meaningless” but Joan was “overwhelmed with her own life’s meaning – and the fact that the only meaning it could have was the meaning she gave it” (page 280).

c.      When Vanessa’s brother was talking with her about what she is doing he said, “But if all I am doing with what I’ve learned is using it for myself, what kind of legacy is that?” (page 151).

9.      Discuss your reading experience.  Did you like that you had to read the entire novel to see how things turned out?  OR did you skip ahead the read the end at some point?

10.  The front of the book has the words “A Love Story” under the title.  Does that adequately describe the book?