*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free graphic novel.*

I don't see any "Romeo and Juliet" in this one, "Star-Crossed" is purely about sex: imagine Star Trek Original Series's Kirk meeting a sexy alien species. Yup, he's going to f*ck them and well: f*ck around and find out, I guess, because the species kinda wanted to fall pregnant.

Apart from this very stereotypical and silly story, I found the drawings to be stereotypical too: he's a muscle-y Clark Kent / James T. Kirk who is easily seduced by the hypersexual and sexy alien with huge boobs who's very willing to be taken by him. Yuck.

Overall, this felt a bit like a TOS episode but even more American. I found the conclusion disappointing and overall the graphic novel focussed way too much on alien sex instead of proper world building, story, character depth.

Some cool ideas in here but this just annoying me.

1.5 stars

I didn’t like the story as much as I was hoping. The art was amazing, and the concepts of the aliens was interesting! But there were just too many places where my nose wrinkled up because I didn’t like what was happening to the characters…

I was hooked until the end. Great mix of sci-fi lore and first contact. I felt like this would make a good tv series or movie.

I don't know what this is, or what it's trying to be, or trying to say, beyond the trite 'racism is bad'. It links good ol' human racism to literal xenophobia - our hero is part of a first contact crew, and he starts bonking one of the extraterrestrials (too much first contact!). It doesn't take long for the other crewmembers to discover this, and they think it's disgusting and then we find out our white hero had a relationship with a black woman in the past, which was destroyed by their relative families for very racist reasons. And this feels very 'European comics' to me - using American characters to make some facile statement about a very sensitive subject.

And then the ending is just a big nothing. And it all feels kind of obvious and pointless.

That said, I liked the art a lot, especially the designs of the alien worlds. Good stuff, in search for a better script.

2.5 stars, mostly for the art.

i went into this story hoping for an amazing romance, and fascinating worldbuilding.

i was left incredibly disappointed.

the pacing was a bit off, the switching between scenes sometimes felt jarring. the novel was much too short for the story.

the romance didn't develop properly, it seemed like we went from point A to point B with zero clue as to how both characters got there. how did those feelings develop? why was she interested in him? i did not believe in the romance for one second. the single point of view did a disservice to the romance, especially since danko was not a likeable character. he never took responsability for his past, and never follows through on his little outbursts about how people are small minded. he gets angry but never stands up for what is right. he even reacts incredibly poorly to things he does not understand.

the ableist, racist and sexist language throughout was incredibly hurtful. none of those interactions were called out by other characters. all the women in danko's life were used only as plot devices for his own character development.

sadly, i would not recommend this novel.

The art in this is very well done and beautiful at times- the cover is the whole reason I looked at this in the first place. I was excited to get into the story after seeing that the premise was intergalactic Romeo and Juliet and ended feeling very disappointed. Given the description, I was expecting a love story and I did not feel like this story delivered. There was a lot of sex, but not so much romance. I also expected to see both characters sides of this forbidden romance (how they both felt, how their love impacted their lives) and we really only get to see the male perspective. The whole story really centers only around the male experience at the expense of the females in the story. I didn’t feel like I had a chance to really get to know any of the characters which left me really not caring about them or what was going on. The bigger story itself felt very rushed due to it being a standalone- I felt as if it could have benefitted being stretched into more than one part.

An interstellar romance in the spirit of Romeo and Juliet. First contact has been made with an advanced alien species known as the Eo’Tarx, and the two civilizations begin the path toward understanding. CIA linguist Danko Orton is dispatched, tasked with studying communication with the Eo’Tarx alongside his alien counterpart No’mi.

Star Crossed failed to tell any cohesive story, yes, there was an intergalactic romance, but we were shown very little build up to it. The time between the two characters meeting and copulating was only 2 interactions! I don't call that romance in the least, this was just gratuitous sex scene after gratuitous sex scene interspersed with some cliche American military–industrial complex.

The illustrations were good but not good enough to make up for the lack in story quality. I cared for none of the characters or what happened to them and found myself wishing for more context in so many situations that occurred throughout the story. I think if the author spent less time on the sex scenes and more time in developing a more in-depth narrative I would have enjoyed this more.

Thank you to NetTGalley, Humanoids Inc, Jerry Frissen, and Roberto Zaghi for the opportunity to read this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

Star-Crossed, as the name implies, is a Romeo and Juliet-inspired graphic novel space drama between humans and an alien race called the Eo'Tarx. Linguist Danko, of the humans, starts to meet independently with one of the female Eo'Tarx, No'Mi. The Eo'Tarx a pacifist truth seekers, and they hope to make an agreement between their people and those of Earth, so that they may begin colonizing.

Based on Danko's past and his interactions with No'Mi, the Eo'Tarx realize there is so much more to human history and emotion that is hard to grasp and find understanding in relation to what their species know and experience.

With a play on two sides that may not be meant to be together, Danko and No'Mi begin to love each other, and that love may make or break the alliance the two species seek.

Thoughtfully drawn with realism and excellent story craft full of pathos, history, sci-fi, and genetics, this story is a brilliant stand-alone with potential for more. While I felt unfulfilled in such a short expanse of story, there is also so much depth to pull from this short masterpiece that adds speculation and thought for the reader after finishing the book. Hemingway's' Iceberg Theory is at its best with the depth that this story holds for the reader and their exploration of themselves and their questions toward humanity.

A great graphic novel for lovers of star-crossed romance, space exploration, science, and science-fiction.

Very interesting comic book! The art was beautiful and the story was engaging a nice little surprise! I would recommend it!

Two star crossed lovers, a human and extraterrestrial, themes of racism, humanity and sexism all feature in this Romeo and Juliet inspired graphic novel.

The concept and cover was what originally caught my eye, I was so intrigued from first sight! I really wanted to love this story, but there was just so much I did not enjoy unfortunately. The artwork and colouring were absolutely beautiful, but this did not make up for the downfalls of this novel.

One of my main issues with this novel was the pacing and timeline. From the first few pages, large periods of time were skimmed over, often times where scenes should have been more detailed, where providing the reader with some further context was needed. Everything happened so quickly, from start to finish. The pacing was so fast it felt like we got no real character development or backgrounds to the different species or side characters. I wish we got to see more of the extraterrestrials and their way of life.
The ending also felt so rushed and unfulfilling. I'm not usually one for a stereotypical happy ending, but this ending just left readers with so many questions. I'm hoping for a sequel so we can get some answers!

Another issue for me was the underlying misogyny throughout. I'm not sure if we were supposed to feel sorry for our protagonist, but I really don't, and readers shouldn't. He always seemed to end up lucking out or in a better situation than all the females he had interactions with. His decisions, lack of actions and lack of speaking up somehow always benefited him, but negatively impacted the women he was involved with.
This star crossed lovers story was extremely one sided as readers only experienced our male protagonist's experiences and downfalls.

There also seemed to be an unnecessary amount of sex scenes within this story, which I was not expecting. Considering how short this novel was and how there were several important themes throughout, the sexual part of their relationship was overpowering and had no real impact to the actually storyline, a storyline which was already quite confusing and blurry to begin with.

This story has so much potential and I would love to see it retold in a more fleshed out manner. I would love to know more about the alien species, more about our extraterrestrial 'Juliet' and a lot more world building. The ending and the questions left unanswered around what happened to No'mi is what leaves me wanting and needing more from this novel! If there is a second graphic novel I will definitely be checking it out!

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the ARC of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

Something about this story just didn't click for me. There were several interesting concepts in this story, but it all flew by so quickly, that it was difficult to understand anything completely. The setup for the larger plot flew past way too fast, and it's insanely hard to figure out if it's meant to be completely futuristic or only partially. The romance between the human man and alien was...odd? Like, the story tried so hard to be romantic, but I mostly found myself feeling apathetic to what they were experiencing. There was also multiple [spice] scenes that I did NOT expect. Like, there is full frontal nudity, and you see [female presenting chest] a LOT. It's a little confusing why there is so much [spice] and nudity, but...it doesn't really add or detract from the overall plot. I feel like this story, if fleshed out a bit, would honestly translate better as a movie or a TV show. The art style was good, but it's not my favorite. It's traditional American comic style.

Thank you Netgalley for this arc read. This one wasn't for me. The artwork was well done. I felt like the story had a lot of potential but seemed a bit rushed. I just couldn't get into it.

Thank you net galley for this arc. This graphic novel attempts to discuss humanity, sexism and racism through the lens of Romeo and Juliet. In reality the story only focuses on the male lead Orton. His needs. His wants. His desires. Every female character in the book was sacrificed for his needs while he is able to live his life without consequences. The story wants us to rally for Orton but in reality Orton isn’t the hero. He still profits off a system he allegedly hates.