the coolest bookstores in the world.

final review of atmosphere by taylor jenkins reid + a summer reading guide!

Welcome back, bookworms!

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People often talk about how reading books and buying books are two different hobbies. I would like to introduce a third hobby to the mix: Visiting new bookstores <3

I have a rule that whenever I’m in a new city, I need to scope out the local bookstore (or three of them) and buy a book (maybe more). It’s genuinely become one of my favourite things to do when I travel now. I love getting to see cool bookstores, check out the staff favourites and local book clubs, or even just wander around for an hour. This ultimately led me to purchase a book about the “100 Bookstores You Need To Visit Before You Die”.

Now, instead of telling you all to purchase the book, I think I’ve done something better… I made a collection of all my favourite bookstores from around the world. We’re talking cozy second-hand books in Arizona, to a book club bar in NYC, to the oldest bookstore in the UK. Since I pretty much live on Pinterest for all things books, I figured this would be a good home for it. On the board, you’ll find pictures of the coolest bookstores I’ve ever set foot in, stunning UK covers, mini vlogs of exploring new bookstores, and more:

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FINAL REVIEW of ATMOSPHERE by TAYLOR JENKINS REID

What I liked about this book

• Joan

• Vanessa

• Every astronomy/NASA reference

• Joan and France’s relationship

• The ending

• Character development (mainly lydia’s)

What I didn’t like about this book

• Barbara.

• Barbara’s stupid boyfriend.

❤️ THE ROMANCE

First off, while it says ‘A Love Story’ on the title page of this book, I see it as more than just a love story; it’s so much deeper and impactful than the love stories we know and love today.

Joan and Vanessa have a deep connection, soft love, and strong chemistry. I loved getting to know both characters in dual timelines before we even entertained the idea of a love story. I felt like I was inside Joan’s mind as she figured out how and why she was feeling every feeling. It broke my heart to see her conform to the societal standards at the time and let them cloud her own romantic feelings (and then it hurt even more later on).

Vanessa is exactly who Joan needs. Everybody needs a Vanessa. I loved how straight-up she was with her feelings towards Joan and never wavered from them. Overall, Vanessa’s bluntless never failed—espeically when it came to protecting Joan from Barbara. She never spoke for Joan, but she made it very clear that she wasn’t on team Barbara and stood by Joan every chance she got. She was her rock through and through and an absolute force to be reckoned with.

While their love story is beautiful, it’s also deeply emotional and sad as the story goes. The reference to Joan’s “sexual deviance” had my blood boiling. The way they had to hide their relationship had me wanting to throw this book across the room because while this is a fiction novel, it’s not a fiction experience. I just wanted these two to get married and live happily ever after, and go on public dates and hold hands.

“If you’re in bed next to me, I will take your hand. If you are not, I will go find you. I will spend the rest of my life, if I get that lucky, seeking you out. Not because I promised you or because you’re there. But because I will want to. I will want to be beside you. Every day. Forever.” “You will?” Vanessa tucked a strand of Joan’s hair behind her ear. “Every morning, I wake up and I think, ‘God, yes, her.’ ” Joan smiled and dried her tears. “If that can be enough for you,” Vanessa said, “it’s yours until the day I die.”

🔭 NASA & ASTRONOMY ELEMENTS

Arguably, my favourite aspect of this novel is the integration of space. I have a very basic understanding of astronomy (thank you, first-year university astrophysics), but I still found this book very easy to follow. Several reviews mention that this book is like flipping through a physics novel, but I didn’t find that to be the case. Even if I had no astronomy knowledge, I feel like Reid did a fantastic job of giving readers enough information to fully understand what was going on.

I also felt the balance of astronomy to the rest of the book was very well balanced! I was intrigued at every new fact about space, NASA, or space shuttles that I learned. I was a sponge for knowledge throughout the entire novel.

If anyone has any other loosely based on fiction, astronomy books… PLEASE MESSAGE ME RECS :)

😀 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

I’m not sure how one could create an unlikeable character like Lydia, and yet I still find myself not hating her. While Joan spent some time attempting to figure out who and what Lydia represented, she was very easy to understand in my brain. I know Lydia’s. I’ve been friends with Lydia’s.

She wanted to be the best and did everything in her power to do so. What was she lacking? Being a human. Early on in the book, she was cold and distant and was putting her own goals onto others. She viewed all the women in the group as one, but not in an overly positive way. She believed if one damned then, that they would damn them all. Joan was a human being. She had a life outside of being an astronaut, which was evidently what they were looking for when she was asked to go up first in her group. This was something Lydia sought to understand.

Throughout the novel, Lydia exhibited numerous rude, fake, and selfish actions, yet I still found her likable as a character. Maybe it all came down to the fact that she saved everyone on the space shuttle, but I still think it’s more than that.

Vanessa didn’t have much character development for me until the very end. Defying NASA’s orders, for what she thought was best for the crew, did not surprise me. I was a bit surprised that those orders she defied meant she was going to save Lydia, the one person she hated on the crew.

📈 THE PACING

While I loved this book, there were definitely some slower points in the middle that were a bit hard to push through. The beginning and end of the book had more POVs in 1984 when the spacecraft crisis was underway, but the middle chapters had a slower pace filled with character development and romance.

That said, I can’t even complain because those slower moments allowed us to see Joan’s relationship with her sister and niece from a different perspective. I hated Barbara and her boyfriend with a passion and every action they made pissed me off even more. BUT, that side plot gave us the emotional impact of Joan saving over her care at the end of the book.

“Listen to me,” Joan said. “I was circling two hundred miles above the Earth, and all I wanted was to get home and see you. Do you understand that? Do you understand that I don’t care how big or small this world is, that you are the center of mine? Do you understand that, to someone, you are everything that matters on this entire planet?”

✨ THE ENDING

Tears.

A few weeks ago, I was checking to see how many pages were in the book and accidentally found myself glancing at the last page, which meant I knew Vanessa was going to live (I was like 90% sure). But that didn’t mean I wasn’t at the edge of my seat for those last few chapters. My eyes were blurred with tears, but at that point, I would’ve been happy with any ending.

This book has forever changed my reading tastes for good.

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SUMMER READING GUIDE

Welcome to the last podcast episode of season 1! This season has been a wild ride, and I am so excited to see where season 2 takes us. For this 15th episode, I wanted to share a list of my favourite summer reads—perfect for reading by a dock or in the sunshine. I hope you love this episode as much as I loved filming it :)

Thank you all for an incredible season <3

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happy reading

- morgann xx