The following version of this book was used to create the guide: McElroy, Alex. The Atmospherians. Atria Books, 2021.

Alex McElroy's novel The Atmospherians is written from main character Sasha's first person point of view. The narrative is written from the past tense, and embraces unconventional linguistic and formal elements. The following summary employs a linear mode of explanation.

When Sasha was a young girl, she grew up in rural New Jersey. Her parents were divorced, and she had few friends. When she met Dyson, things began to change. They developed a close relationship, and Sasha started spending afternoons in his basement, watching bootleg movies.

During the latter half of their time in high school, Dyson's father died. To deal with his grief, Dyson begged Sasha to help him lose weight. His father had always bullied and abused him about his eating and appearance. Dyson's initial interest in getting into shape quickly turned into an eating disorder. He had to go into treatment after having a heart attack.

While the friends were in college, Sasha began developing a wellness brand called ABANDON. She exploited Dyson's eating disorder history as her brand's origin story, quickly earning her a massive number of followers.

Over the years, ABANDON developed, and Sasha grew in popularity and fame. One night, after celebrating with her business partner and friend, Cassandra, Sasha discovered another lewd post on her social media from a frequent harasser, Lucas Devry. Determined to stop him once and for all, Sasha responded to his comment, saying that the world would be a better place if he were dead.

That night, Lucas Devry live-streamed his suicide, blaming Sasha for what he had done to himself. Immediately afterwards, everyone turned on Sasha, casting her as Lucas Devry’s murderer. She lost followers. She lost her job. Her boyfriend, Blake, broke up with her. Cassandra publicly denounced her brand and character. She received constant death threats, and angry men surrounded her apartment. Unable to contact Dyson, Sasha hid in her apartment for months.

Finally, Dyson arrived on Sasha's birthday, and promised to help her. On their drive to Dyson's land in the New Jersey woods, Dyson explained his plan to start a cult called The Atmosphere. He wanted Sasha to join, believing that together they might devote themselves to the betterment of terrible men. Sasha agreed because she had nowhere else to go, nor nothing else to do.

Over the course of the following weeks and months, Dyson and Sasha developed The Atmosphere. Their 12 followers, the Atmospherians, were a group of men Dyson used to work with in a flimsy version of therapy.

Determined not to like the men, Sasha did everything in her power to hate and humiliate them. However, eventually she began to see their humanity. Once she learned the truth about their hurts and longings, she felt empathy and compassion towards them.

Afraid of this feeling, and frustrated with Dyson for his increasingly fraught emotional state, Sasha fled the Atmosphere to pursue a job with a startup called DAM. Once she realized the distorted nature of DAM's mission, she abandoned the work, and returned to The Atmosphere. Life there, however, had changed. Dyson was different, too.

Not long after Sasha's return, Dyson drowned himself in the pond.

In the years following, Sasha remained devoted to the development of The Atmosphere. She eventually moved the cult headquarters to an abandoned mall.