3.5 Stars
This graphic novel is odd, but in an intriguing way. The reader joins the crew of the California, space station that has no real clue if earth is alive or not. But that does not really play into the story. This is a story about relationships. About the first generation that has set new rules and moral code to live by. Where partnered people like parents are so old fashioned and everyone should be open and honest not just about daily life, but sex as well. That is the major hurdle this story gives the reader to jump. Our main character Rigo wants to cohabitate with her beau, but they are a very free society and she feels old fashioned. She doesn't want to be monogamous, but in an open relationship. Relationship is the bad word in this scenario. As I said I’m intrigued, and want to see how the story progresses.

This is only a short book, and my review is also only going to be short.

Basically, this focuses on members of a human colony who have left Earth. The teens in this colony are the first generation of Earthlings not born on Earth. The main character - who's name was rarely mentioned - strongly wants to create new customs and culture, as she believes the Earth culture is what led to the planet's ultimate demise. Her parents are more interested in preserving old cultures, though, and find her ideas of 'normal' to be quite extraordinary.

There wasn't much of an overarching plot really, only the story of the girl and her many lovers. Basically, her and her whole friendship group are all in a polyamorous relationship. There are a lot (and I really do mean a lot) of sexual scenes, but they are written in a way that normalises the behaviour.

The girl realises she has a different connection to one boy in particular, and wants to move into his home after his sister moves out. But this makes the others fear that they're going to 'couple off' and cut them out of their lives.

It was a pretty strange book, honestly. It's good to be normalising different relationships such as this, but I didn't see any other plots really going on. 3 stars.

I breezed through this book fairly easily, though when I was reading it I thought it was the 2nd book in a series since it seems to jump right in with the set up relationships and storyline. Loved the body positive and sex postive aspect. The diversity and artwork is great. The artwork flowed easily, not too cluttered. I like how open the communication is between characters since this is geared towards a polyamourous set between characters though it was confusing connecting people in a relationship web.

It's set in space but the sci-fi is in the background. Yes, they explained why they're in space (it did crush me when they basically left all their family behind on earth) and how the 1st generation of people born in space differs in comparison to their parents outlooks in sex and non-mongamous relationships.

Basically we jump in with meeting Rigo, who's a 1st gen space baby, that wants to move out of her parents space apartment to live with one of her partners. She' s worried he will not want to be her new roommate, and her friends are worried she won't want to have sex with all of them if she falls in love with him only. Some clear communication and consent happens and it works out.

*thank you to Netgalley and Oni Press for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

4 stars.

A YA Graphic Novel thats both an entertaining read and beautiful to look at. I think the illustrations in Graphic Novels are just as important as the story itself and this one gets thumbs up. Its a short quick read with just the right amount of a story going on. Based in space, this story gives us an insight to what life could be like if you were born and raised on a space station. While I really liked the whole positive body image for the females, why did all the guys look like Ken dolls? But I came to think that if they were working on a space ship, working out alot on the job, then yeah, this would make sense as to why they all had a 6 pack. Overall, I did enjoy this and would pass it along to my friends to read.

I think it has a great starting point -a sci-fi comic with multicultural cast, mixed languajes, open minded sex and an ecological message. However it seems a little too simple for me. It's well developed but it's too short and the story, too rush. The art is very simple too but I find it colorful and funny. It's a pity since I really think it's a great idea but to me it needs more pages and more development.
Nevertheless I praise the creators' work and I think they have a brilliant future.

A wonderfully interesting take on how society might change it's perceptions of things in the event we leave this planet.

This is difficult -- the work is interested in making a subculture appear like it can become part of the mainstream, an alternative to the mainstream. And I believe it can be. But I'm not sure that the work engages deep enough characterization to make it work as a fun story.

Interesting look at life in space after we have to abandon Earth about the generation that was born in space and their views on relationships. I found the story of what happened on Earth interesting and hope they will explore it more (I'm assuming there will be a sequel) as well as how the First Generation will shape life in space.

I saw this graphic novel on internet so when i saw in netgalley i wanted to read it. It was an okay graphic novel for me. I was expecting different things but i didn't enjoyed it a lot. Something is missing in the story. I hope there is more but right now it was not my kinda graphic novel.

This one wasn’t quite my cup of tea (I think I just wanted a little more plot) but I totally want this on our shelves for featuring a curvy, pansexual, polyamorous woman trying to figure out her love life in space. It’s a multicultural cast of 1st generation space babies now trying to navigate their existence—which is wholly different than their Earth-born parents.

Rigs is a child of the first generation of scientists who fled Earth after its collapse. As the space station prepares to celebrate the 20th anniversary of leaving Earth, Rigs talks over a more personal problem: possibly sharing living quarters with Franklin without becoming exclusive.

I loved the body positivity, latinx rep, PC rep, sex positivity and the emphasis on open communication and consenting relationships. Bonus for polyamorous relationship rep too!

I didn't like that Rigs was pretty one-dimensional and that this fascinating world was so under-developed. It could have explored more about Earth's collapse and the station's future and how the survivors adapted to sharing such a tight living space and future prospects for biodiversity (and also a little bit about the privilege of surviving when everyone else possible died), but instead it focused on: boring Rigs and Rigs talking over her feelings while having NSFW sex all over the place. I also wanted to know why Franklin was Rigs' possible super-special, when their relationship felt less important than the other relationships that she had on the station.

TL;DR: wanted more than I got.

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review.

This is a beautiful book with a thoughtful, forward-thinking look at immigration/migration, climate, and how ideals change over time. The characters are sweet and realistic. There is a fair amount of graphic sex but it certainly works with the plot and sex-positive stories like this are in short supply. The whole thing made me think of Love and Rockets- the playful soap-opera like plotline, the language mishmash, and of course the heroine, Riga, is definitely a 21st century Maggie. I think the graphic erotic nature of this might not make it a good fit for some libraries collection development policies, which is too bad because I think good things come from reading this book.

When I was browsing Netgalley, I came across this graphic novel and the description caught my eye. I loved the idea of the graphic novel tand I'm glad that I was able to read it.

Obviously, this book isn't going to be for pruder individuals. The reason I say this is because at times the graphics were definitely R-rated. This isn't something that you could handsell to a teen or recommend for someone that is younger. With that said, the graphics were very well done and I loved the cutesy artistic style that they portrayed.

Something else that I liked was the integration of spanish in the book. It was done sporadically and it added to the story. I enjoyed the book though I wish it was longer and would have delved into deeper depths of the characters. I felt like I was thrown into a story and didn't feel like I knew anything about any of the characters.

All in all it was a quick good steamy read.

When I read the blurb for this one, I had to request it IMMEDIATELY. Polyamory? In space? Sign me up.

The artwork in this is quite wonderful (sex scenes are present, for those not-yet-adult), and I loved the conversations that needed to happen and how emotions were present and real during those conversations. I also love that the main character wanted to avoid conversations for a while because they're hard (they really are. when emotions are involved, sometimes you just want to run. this book was true to that.).

I will say that, while this story wrapped up in quite a good way, and I felt like the characters were somewhat fleshed out, I was still left wanting more. This just felt like a snapshot in these characters' lives, and it was difficult to really get a peg on them, or to even really remember their names properly? The issues they're dealing with and discussing were very real and felt well-handled, I just would have appreciated more lead-up, more exploration of the characters, and just... more! This is a great step forward, though, and I really hope Sarah Mirk will do more! (and that I will be able to get my hands on it!)


{I received a review copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.}

While it's refreshing to see a a queer polyamory space based graphic novel full of sex positivity and communication, there are problems with this title. Firstly, it's extremely short, and feels rushed at about 100 pages. It could have used 40-60 more pages to really flesh out the characters and plot. Secondly, while the book discusses taboos like kink and polyamory it doesn't always do it positively - kink shaming isn't okay and shouldn't have made the final cut of this title. Thirdly, the book touches on food production and controlled portions - so why is there only one plus size person? And why does that plus size character only have skinny partners? I'd really like to see a second issue of this title that delves in a bit deeper to this issues.

Open Earth reminds us that no matter how much we change we remain the same. Open Earth reminds us that we are not in charge of other's bedrooms and relationships. Open earth reminds us that each new generation is generation one and can be whatever they want to become. Open Earth teaches these lessons in a way that entertains( Zero Gravity rooms) and then entertains even more( don't cut on the lights). Open Earth just rocks.

This was a quick read. I've heard a lot about this graphic novel before and I was expecting great things. I liked the polyamory angle and all the different looking and sized bodies. The novel is very light on the plot though and I would have liked it to delve a little bit deeper to the situation on the space station and the characters' lives. As it is, the characterization was rather thin on quite a few of the characters and there was hardly any sense of who these people were.

It was interesting nevertheless and a book I will recommend as worth something to look into.

OMG This was amazing!!! I loved the representation of different body shapes, ethnicities, and couple types. It was a lovely story with beautiful artwork. I devoured every frame and was really disappointed when it ended. I want more, I need more. The art style for this was perfect! I am begging for more and for this to be turned into a series. Representation for polyamorous people and couples aren't represented often and this was very well done! I would love to see more of their communications and their growth in navigating the new life changes.

I found this story a little weird. I wanted to like it, but there were quite a few problems. The story didn't delve very deeply, glossing over some pretty serious issues. I didn't feel like we really got to understand the relationships of the characters. I think this story would have been great had it been more than one issue.
The sex scenes were unexpected and a little overdone. I was nice to see plus sized bodies, but the sex felt like it came out of nowhere and didn't seem to add to the story at all.
Overall, I think the premise is nice, but the story should have been executed better.

Review
After hearing Chelsea (chelseadolling reads) and Julie (Pages and Pens) talk about this one, I was super eager to get my hands on this one!

Upon reading it, I actually really enjoyed it, but I didn’t absolutely fall in love with it.

This graphic novel takes place in the near-future, where the US goes to complete hell and those who live in a succeeded California are able to escape to space. We then follow our MC, Rigo, who is in open polyamorous relationships with some of the fellow crew members.

What drew me to this graphic novel was definitely the polyamorous relationships. I don’t think we see enough poly rep, especially positive poly rep. I really love the way the poly relationships were handled, including the communication, worries, and changing preferences.

I also love that this graphic novel had a plus-sized main character that was confident in her sexuality. While Rigo does begin to question things about her relationships, she never loses her confidence. Oh, and I really enjoy that comments about the MC’s body never really come up, unless it’s during a sexy time scene and it’s part of the sexy time.

One thing I wasn’t expecting, but I really enjoyed was the use of Spanish in this graphic novel. As mentioned above, California succeeded from the US and they declared Spanish their official language. Because of this, the characters sometimes go into Spanish when talking to each other. My knowledge of Spanish is pretty limited, I took Spanish 1 and 2 in high school…and that’s about it. That being said, I was able to figure out most of the Spanish comments through context clues or through my limited knowledge.

It was also nice to see a Latina MC with a solid relationship with her parents. It felt so wholesome and sweet. There was one scene with the parents that had me actually laugh out loud. If you read the graphic novel, you’ll know what scene. But it’s a bit of a visual gag and I loved it.

Now, with all that good, I did want to address what lowered my rating.

I know this is a graphic novel and there are (most likely) going to be more volumes to build on the plot. That being said, the plot for this one was cute but not as climatic as I was hoping it would be. I am curious to see where this series goes, but I did want a bit more from the first volume.

Final Thoughts
This is a great read for those of you that like more contemporary graphic novels (yes it’s technically sci-fi and it’s in space, but plot-wise, it’s pretty contemporary). I loved how the polyamorous relationships were handled, how the family dynamic was addressed, and how confident our MC is. However, I did want a bit more from the plot. Though, I’m curious to see how this series continues.

I do still recommend this one though! Contemporaryathon round 3 is happening in September and depending on the challenges, this may be a great pick! Oh and if you don’t mind some sexy time, those scenes were pretty fun too.

Rating
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ – 3.75/5 Stars

**HUGE thank you to NetGalley and Oni Press for providing me with an advance copy for review!**