Best-Selling Novel About 'Forbidden Romance' Ranked Among 'Best Books of 2025'
Fans of space, sapphic love, and Taylor Jenkins Reid can celebrate extra hard this Lesbian Visibility Week as Atmosphere, her historical romance novel, is listed as the third best book of 2025 according to Goodreads. With a 4.3 star average out of 5 and over 800,000 reviews, Atmosphere was only outranked by Onyx Storm of the Fourth Wing series, and Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. Published last June, being listed as a Goodreads Best Book is one of the many accolades for Atmosphere which was an instantSunday Times Bestseller, a #1 New York Times Bestseller, the Goodreads Choice for Best Historical Fiction of 2025, the Target Book of the Year for 2025, and a GMA Book Club Pick, just to name a few.
A sweeping love story set in the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program, Atmosphere captivated readers last summer who often captured their emotional responses to reading the novel-especially the final chapters.
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When discussing the central love story in Atmosphere and why she ultimately chose to focus on two women falling in love, Reid has said: "Because there are a lot of different sides to me and it felt like, creatively, it was time to indulge this one. And also, because no one is going to tell me that love isn't love. I wanted to write a big, bold sweeping love story. I think I wanted to break my own heart, a little bit."
What is Atmosphere about?
In 1980, space-obsessed Joan Goodwin is selected from a pool of thousands of applicants for Houston's Johnson Space Center to be one of the first women to enter the highly competitive Space Shuttle Program. Previously an astronomer and physics professor, Joan enters the program with dozens of other exceptional candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, mission specialist Lydia Danes, warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, and Vanessa Ford, a magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer.
Set between a crisis occurring in 1984 and the lives of Joan and her fellow potential astronauts in the earlier years, the novel oscillates between the unlikely friends and lovers preparing for their first flights, while Joan discovers passion and a romance she never could have imagined leading her to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the world.
What's next from Reid and Atmosphere?
Following the critical and commercial acclaim to Atmosphere, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck of Captain Marvel have been tapped to adapt the novel for film. The project is currently in development with no official release date as of yet.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has reportedly finished her next novel, a "bad girl road trip" to potentially be released some time in 2027.
Related: Best-Selling Author's Novel Consistently Ranks Among Top Reader Favorites on Goodreads
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This story was originally published April 23, 2026 at 1:39 PM.