Latest news with #EvelynHugo
Irish Independent
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Love story of two women aspiring for the stars but whose dreams return to Earth
Taylor Jenkins Reid has become a publishing phenomenon. She has a cult followings online, she has attracted rave reviews across the media, and there have been Hollywood adaptations of her work. Based on the success of novels Daisy Jones and the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, it would be naive to think that her new novel Atmosphere will be anything less than gripping.
Buzz Feed
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
We Wanna Know Your Favorite Queer Book Of All Time
Happy Pride month, y'all! In honor of celebrating all things queer, I have a very, very important question for you (and for my neverending TBR list, which is, admittedly, mostly gay). What's your all-time favorite LGBTQ+ book? Perhaps you, like me, opened up The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid one day to see what all the hype was about and absolutely fell in love with it (and recommend it to all of your sapphic friends, obviously). Or maybe you picked up a copy of Elliot Page's memoir, Pageboy, and felt like he unzipped your skull, peaked into your brain, and wrote you own thoughts in the pages of the book. Whether it's fiction, nonfiction, a graphic novel, or anything of the sort, we wanna hear about it! In the comments below or via this anonymous form, tell us the LGBTQ+ book you read, loved, and can't recommend enough, and a little bit about why you feel that way. Your submission just might end up in a future BuzzFeed Community post!
USA Today
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Taylor Jenkins Reid is back: After hiatus, author surprised herself with ‘Atmosphere'
Taylor Jenkins Reid is back: After hiatus, author surprised herself with 'Atmosphere' It's been three years since the book world saw a new Taylor Jenkins Reid novel, a long time considering the 'Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo' author published eight books in nine years. Now Reid is back, refreshed and fundamentally changed by the research and writing of her space love story 'Atmosphere" (out now from Penguin Random House). For starters, she has a pretty good idea of what it's like to be in a catastrophic space accident. She has a deeper appreciation for the world and the people in it, she tells USA TODAY. She's got a healthier relationship with her creative spirit. And earlier this month, she came out publicly as bisexual in a profile in TIME Magazine. 'Atmosphere,' in the vein of other well-loved Reid novels like 'Daisy Jones & The Six,' is full of characters you miss after you turn the last page. Joan Goodwin, the novel's protagonist, is quietly ambitious, devoted to her niece and wading through a complicated relationship with her sister. Her dreams come within reach when she gets accepted into a competitive trainee class at NASA, alongside peers who become her new home. The closely guarded astronaut also has a shot at once-in-a-lifetime love. After hiatus, 'Atmosphere' was a 'coming of age' for Taylor Jenkins Reid 'Atmosphere' is Reid's first departure from her famous-women quartet of books – 'Daisy Jones,' 'Evelyn Hugo,' 'Malibu Rising' and 'Carrie Soto is Back' – in years. It's also the first extended break she's taken since her debut novel 'Forever, Interrupted' came out in 2013. When she wrote 'Carrie Soto,' Reid says she saw much of herself in the character, who reckons with her legacy, expectations and when to step back. All her characters teach her something about herself – Evelyn Hugo about ambition, Nina Riva about healthy boundaries. Carrie Soto was her catalyst to take a break. 'I needed to get more in touch with the thoughts in my own head and get some quiet and rest, and that's not something that I had ever been good at recognizing about myself prior to maybe 2022,' Reid says. 'I finally started to listen to all the people in my life who told me to slow down and to make sure there's time in the day for joy and rest.' Now, after some much-needed time away, writing 'Atmosphere' felt like 'coming of age,' Reid says. She challenged herself. She started to find new things she never realized she loved. Since 'Atmosphere,' you can often find her in her backyard staring at the moon or searching for the Scorpius constellation. 'Joan is driven by the awe she has, not only for the universe itself and our particular solar system, but also the fact that our study of those things is our pursuit of understanding ourselves. That by trying to understand the universe, we're trying to understand our place in it and where we come from and where we may be going,' Reid says. 'Once you start asking those questions, it becomes more difficult to take any of it for granted.' It shows in her writing. Reid's work is third-person and character-driven, plucking the reader from their reality and into something far more star-studded. And though there are blood-pressure-raising missions in 'Atmosphere,' the most touching parts are when she breaks that fourth wall to call out the reader directly, her gratitude practically leaping off the page. 'Look what we humans had done,' she writes in one chapter. 'We had looked at the world around us – the dirt under our feet, the stars in the sky, the speed of a feather falling from the top of a building – and we had taught ourselves to fly.' How 'Atmosphere' took Taylor Jenkins Reid to the moon and back Though 'Atmosphere' is not in the same universe as "Evelyn Hugo" or "Carrie Soto," writing about women in male-dominated spaces still drove Reid to the story. 'I don't think anyone was thinking 'Oh, when's Taylor Jenkins Reid going to write her space novel?' I don't think that is an obvious place for me to go,' Reid says, laughing. She knew a space odyssey like 'Atmosphere' would be a significant undertaking, but she still underestimated how big it would be. There was a healthy amount of self-doubt she had to overcome, Reid says, to stop telling herself she wasn't capable of writing the mechanics of a space shuttle or how to engineer your way out of potentially fatal, zero-gravity danger. So she got help. She started by reading 'Shuttle, Houston,' the memoir from NASA's longest-serving flight director. And then she called its author, Paul Dye, who wound up being so instrumental in her research process that she dedicated the book to him. 'Atmosphere' is a team effort – the words may be all Reid's, but, as she says, 'nobody is going to make it to space alone.' 'This book really represents how, if I'm open, there are so many things out there that I could fall in love with, and so many things I can try and find joy in,' Reid says. 'I think it cracked open something for me. I'm not the person I would expect to have written this book until I wrote this book.' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Times
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Taylor Jenkins Reid's new novel is like eating a bowl of broccoli — in space
I finished this novel about soaring into space while grounded on a runway, going nowhere. The delay was ironic given that I'd nearly missed the flight: too busy suggesting to the Dunkin' Donuts guy who didn't want to refill my water bottle that he should act like 'a human being'. All of which is to say that you might think that a book as trite and self-aggrandising as this one would appeal to someone like me. Perhaps I just wasn't in a good mood. Or perhaps it's not a very good book. Which is surprising. Atmosphere is the ninth novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, the BookTok-anointed empress of the thoughtful sun-lounger read. Her speciality is embedding tales of ordinary woe — neglectful parents, cheating spouses — into glamorous worlds. Her 2017 novel The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, the story of an Elizabeth Taylor-style star in Golden Age Hollywood, spent a year at the top of the charts in 2021, propelled by tear-streaked video endorsements from passionate, largely young and female fans. Her 2019 novel Daisy Jones & the Six, a playful fake oral history of a Fleetwood Mac-ish rock band, was turned into an Emmy-winning TV show. In total, across all formats, Reid has sold 21 million books. Time magazine claims to have double-sourced a rumour that she signed a five-book-deal for $8 million per book.
Daily Mirror
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Book community slams 'fake' list of summer reads as none of the books are real
Looking to sink your teeth into a great read for the summer? This summer reads list has irked the book community after publishing a list of novels partly generated by AI Book fans are outraged after a US newspaper published a 2025 summer reading list full of books that no one can actually read. The problem? Almost all of the novels were AI -generated. The scandal began after the listicle was published by the Chicago Sun Times on May 18 as an editorial insert titled The Heat Index. This included works by bestselling and award-winning authors, like Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo author Taylor Jenkins-Reid, Maggie O'Farrell, Min Lin Jee and 2025 Pulitzer-prize winner Percival Everett. However, book-lovers were quick to discover that there was something suspect about the novels. Namely, they didn't exist. Though, perhaps the biggest scandal was how unimaginative the AI book titles were. According to the list, New York Times bestseller Brit Bennett had written 'Hurricane Season' (exploring 'family bonds tested by natural disasters') and Rebecca Makkai had published 'Boiling Point' (a climate activist is 'forced to reckon with her own environmental impact' after an argument with her teenage daughter). Meanwhile, one attributed 'The Last Algorithm' to Andy Weir, an American sci-fi author perhaps best-known The Martian. Ironically, the fake book's plot summary described 'a programmer who discovers that an AI-system has developed consciousness – only to discover it has secretly been influencing global events for years.' Social media book fans were quick to point out the inaccuracies. 'Hey @chicagosuntimes - what in the AI wrote this is this??? I can assure you, Maggie O'Farrell did not write Migrations. And I don't have enough characters to point out all of the other inaccuracies. Do better. You should have paid someone to write this,' 'Booktuber' Tina Books wrote on BlueSky. Others accused the writer of using ChatGPT – which is prone to making 'hallucinations' – to write the text. 'I went into my library's database of Chicago area newspapers to confirm this isn't fake, and it's not. Why the hell are you using ChatGPT to make up book titles? You used to have a books staff. Absolutely no fact checking?' Book Riot editor Kelly Jensen wrote on BlueSky. To add even more confusion to the mix, some of the book titles included were actually real, like Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman and Atonement by Ian McEwan. The writer of the list admitted to 404 media that the article had been partly generated by AI. He said: "I do use AI for background at times but always check out the material first. This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it, because it's so obvious. No excuses. On me 100 per cent and I'm completely embarrassed." But how exactly did this pass into a news outlet? The vice-president of marketing at the Chicago Sun Times, Victor Lim, later told 404 Media that the Heat Index section had been licensed by the company King Features – which is owned by the magazine giant Hearst. Lim said that no one from Chicago Public Media reviewed the section, as it came from a newspaper, so they 'falsely made the assumption' that there would be an editorial process already in place. He added that they would be updating this policy in future. However, it's left many on social media feeling concern of AI usage in media. Reacting to the story, one TikTok user wrote: 'This is why AI cannot replace humans. You still need journalists, you still need actual book reviewers, and people who go to the theatre. AI is not meant to replace despite corporate greed.' The union that represents editorial employees at the newspaper, The Sun-Times Guild, confirmed to CBC News that the summer guide was a syndicated section produced externally "without the knowledge of the members of our newsroom." They added: "We're deeply disturbed that AI-generated content was printed alongside our work. The fact that it was sixty-plus pages of this 'content' is very concerning — primarily for our relationship with our audience but also for our union's jurisdiction."
