When The Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi is a book. It explores what would happen if the moon suddenly turned to cheese. Is it horrific? or is it hilarious? The book doesn’t know and keeps asking questions of its characters. The book doesn’t have an answer to the most critical question. Why did the moon turn into cheese? There’s never even a guess. It just happens and the world has to deal with it. When the moon turns into cheese, it doubles in size. This happens because the moon keeps the same mass. Cheese is denser than rock. The moon expands to maintain its mass. The moon just didn’t change all the moon rocks we brought to Earth are now cheese. The story reminded me of the film Don’t Look Up which is a very bleak comedy. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a bleak comedy. This tone did not work for me. The book has some funny things but the tone is all wrong. One scene has a group of college kids who are angry at the cheese moon. They want to take out their anger on something, so they go to a cheese shop. This is hilarious and very clever. However, we don’t get the perspective of the kids. Instead, we see the horrified cheese shop owners. I felt the tone ruined the joke. The book has no main characters and very few returning characters. The story is comprised of vignettes about how people react to the cheese moon. Some of the vignettes barely bring up the cheese moon until the end. I see this being a very mixed book. The pace of the book was not bad. The story is told in a variety of forms, such as news articles, reddit forums, straight narrative, journal entries, and letters. I’m a big fan of John Scalzi but this book was a letdown for me. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Books for giving me the opportunity to read When The Moon Hits Your Eye. When the Moon Hits Your Eye was published on March 25, 2025.

Plot Summary: A museum worker notices something interesting about the moon rock, it is not rock but something else. At first, they think it was stolen but they see no signs of tampering with the glass case. When they watch the security cams they see no tampering. So they test the moon which feels like Play-dough but has a smell. They spend countless hours researching it. Finally, someone takes a fingernail on the surface and puts it in his mouth. He determines it is cheese. When they look at the moon it is shinier and larger. The scientists determined it is indeed cheese and is now two times bigger but the same mass. No one wants to admit to the public that the moon is cheese. They have a scientist who wrote a kid’s book about what would happen if the moon was made of cheese. This revelation makes the world go a little insane. Rich people set up a black market trying to be the first to taste the moon. Cheese is soon added to sexual fantasies. A hundred movies are written about the scenario with the worst pun titles. The religions question faith in God over this oddity.

What I Liked: The concept of rich people trying to be the first to taste the moon was clever. I liked how seriously they took the verification of moon cheese. The rioter taking out their hate of the cheese moon on a cheese shop was very clever. The religious debate was interesting and made me think about my faith if this happened. I do like that there is a debate about is this situation funny or serious. I wish they had an answer or two characters who took it the opposite way. The writer’s story was my favorite. It had the least to do with the moon. I feel it should have been moved up, and not towards the end. I was bummed we never got an update on her character but we don’t get any updates on characters. The cheese moon landing scene was wild and very surprising. I did like getting the ten years later after the events of the book. I liked that the band Post Modern Jukebox was mentioned in the book.

What I Disliked: The bleak twist was just okay. I thought something more should have been done about the moon melting or the moon starting to smell. The tone was too serious it could have been much funnier. I wanted a scientist through the story determined to figure out what happened to the moon. I think the ending was a cope. If the moon rocks turned to cheese, then the piece of the cheese moon should have turned to rock. I would have liked to see a cheese rebellion. I thought the burn on Saturday Night Live was unoriginal. Almost every sketch being about the moon was a bit much. I was convinced this book was tied to Starter Villain John Scalzi’s last book. I thought it would have been a good villain’s plan we have to unravel.

Recommendations: When the Moon Hits Your Eye was a miss for me. The book is not devoid of clever writing but the tone was just off for me. I’m still a big John Scalzi fan and have rated his last two books 5 stars. I want to love every book but I did not love this book. I think if you like bleak comedies then this book might be for you. If you like a ridiculous scenario taken way too seriously then this book is for you. I can not recommend When the Moon Hits Your Eye. However, I will recommend both Starter Villain and The Kaiju Preservation Society.

Rating: When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi I rated 2.5 out of 5.

Ranking: I have read 3 John Scalzi novels so far. I will rate them in order from my favorite to least favorite: 1) The Kaiju Preservation Society, 2) Starter Villain, and 3) When The Moon Hits Your Eye.

I have collected all the John Scalzi novels and will be reading through his collection soon.