a tale of two aviation stories
Feb. 13th, 2026 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isunshowerwent to the big local library with my boyfriend the other day and walked out with three books, two of them involving "people go up in the air". one of them was MUCH better than the other.
Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid (of Daisy Jones/Evelyn Hugo fame) follows two trainee astronauts as they enter into a lesbian relationship, and then one of them almost gets stranded in space while the other one is mission control. it's sad. it's totally gripping---the last part of the book especially had me locked the fuck in!!!!!!!! there's an awesome secondary conflict between the main character and her sister, where the mc is basically parenting her niece because her sister won't. it feels located in time. it is, honestly, basically everything i expected from one of Reid's books. i loved it and i really need to get around to reading everything else she's ever written.
on the other hand, not they who soar by amanda flower... okay. i made two mistakes here. one was not clocking that this was the second book in a series. i realize this as i'm reading the author's note, and i'm like, okay, i'll give it a try and see if it's readable as a standalone. (it is, with a caveat, i'll get to that.) secondly this is very obviously a YA novel and unfortunately not a particularly good one. Flower clearly cares a lot about being historically accurate--the book is about orville and wilbur wright's real sister, solving a mystery at the st. louis exposition--but i got 40 pages into the book and it was already getting in the way--oh, i know this person from this place, my brothers are in these places with these people, all reported very factually, and that on top of a YA style of storytelling that no longer works for me at the age of 25. i do still read some YA, but i've given up on this one. that's why i can't say whether or not it can ACTUALLY stand alone, because within a day i am cutting my losses and not finishing it. maybe i'll buy a copy of the first book in the series for my little cousin and see how she likes it, idk.
Atmosphere: A Love Story by Taylor Jenkins Reid (of Daisy Jones/Evelyn Hugo fame) follows two trainee astronauts as they enter into a lesbian relationship, and then one of them almost gets stranded in space while the other one is mission control. it's sad. it's totally gripping---the last part of the book especially had me locked the fuck in!!!!!!!! there's an awesome secondary conflict between the main character and her sister, where the mc is basically parenting her niece because her sister won't. it feels located in time. it is, honestly, basically everything i expected from one of Reid's books. i loved it and i really need to get around to reading everything else she's ever written.
on the other hand, not they who soar by amanda flower... okay. i made two mistakes here. one was not clocking that this was the second book in a series. i realize this as i'm reading the author's note, and i'm like, okay, i'll give it a try and see if it's readable as a standalone. (it is, with a caveat, i'll get to that.) secondly this is very obviously a YA novel and unfortunately not a particularly good one. Flower clearly cares a lot about being historically accurate--the book is about orville and wilbur wright's real sister, solving a mystery at the st. louis exposition--but i got 40 pages into the book and it was already getting in the way--oh, i know this person from this place, my brothers are in these places with these people, all reported very factually, and that on top of a YA style of storytelling that no longer works for me at the age of 25. i do still read some YA, but i've given up on this one. that's why i can't say whether or not it can ACTUALLY stand alone, because within a day i am cutting my losses and not finishing it. maybe i'll buy a copy of the first book in the series for my little cousin and see how she likes it, idk.
