This is it—I'm done.
I don’t care how many rave reviews Taylor Jenkins Reid racks up; clearly, her style is not for me. Even the scene set in a New Orleans titty bar was decidedly un-titillating.
The science-y and queer angle initially piqued my interest, but the characters felt flat and emotionally hollow. Tropes were recycled as stand-ins for actual character development, and the writing leaned heavily on familiar sentiments dressed up as profundity.
Take this quote, for example, presented as “original”:
“To look up at the nighttime sky is to become a part of a long line of people throughout human history who looked above at that same set of stars. It is to witness time unfolding.”
Compare that to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s far more evocative line:
“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare.”
Reid’s popularity, I suspect, isn’t rooted in the depth of her characters or the originality of her world-building. It’s more about repackaging familiar ingredients in a palatable, market-friendly way—like “new and improved” Fruity Pebbles. Still too sweet, still fake, still unsatisfying.
Edith Wharton and Jane Austen, she ain't.
REVIEW: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
RATING: 2-stars
© Jennifer R Clark. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You may share and adapt this content with proper attribution.
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