BookBrowse Reviews When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi

BookBrowse:

Although some of its satire is a bit on-the-nose, John Scalzi's When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a funny, thoughtful, and well-crafted novel about an inexplicable event.

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One day, without warning, the Moon turns into a giant ball of cheese. Every piece of Moon rock on Earth turns with it. Nobody knows why, and there is the general understanding that nobody would be able to find a satisfying answer if they went looking for one. What would you do in that situation, faced with such a grand cosmic joke? If you're the president, you might delay the Moon landing you had planned. If you're an author of pop science books, you might find yourself in hot demand on the talk show circuit. If you're a pastor, you might have a crisis of faith — the Bible never mentioned a cheese Moon, after all. But if you're like most people, you might just go about your life. What else can you do?

John Scalzi tackled similar high concepts in his previous two books, The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. But while those books had a single main character with their own narrative, When the Moon Hits Your Eye is a series of vignettes starring a Magnolia-sized ensemble, including (but by no means limited to) an ex-professor of philosophy, a tech billionaire, several astronauts, a sex worker turned real estate agent, and the employees of two rival cheese shops in Madison, Wisconsin. The novel is at its most compelling in the first half as it hops from person to person, presenting a gestalt of American society as it tries to accommodate such a monumentally bizarre occurrence.

As a series of vignettes, it's hit or miss, and while there are more of the former than the latter, some of Scalzi's satire is shaky. Certain chapters take aim at the rich and powerful — whether they be a deeply stupid billionaire playboy who wants to eat the Moon cheese or a politician with an incredibly specific fetish — and justify themselves with satisfying conclusions. Other chapters, including those featuring a recurring character who might as well be named Schmelon Schmusk, belabor the point somewhat — but then again, maybe some points are worth belaboring.

After a significant development that kicks off the second half, the book becomes grimmer, though still not without humor; a disastrous episode of Saturday Night Live, performed in front of a shell-shocked studio audience, is a highlight. If it's a little disappointing to see a story with such a unique premise take the familiar shape of an end-is-nigh slouch towards oblivion, it redeems itself with a twist that's unexpected yet, in hindsight, inevitable — building up to a bitterly funny final chapter that tickles and stings in equal measure.

The shadow of the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, which just celebrated its fifth anniversary a few weeks ago, looms over When the Moon Hits Your Eye. It was an enormous, destabilizing event, one that everyone had to deal with in their own way, and that briefly brought us all together before we started to tear each other apart. The novel's thesis, which Scalzi illustrates gently but persuasively, is that, when the next cataclysm occurs, we can expect more of the same.

This review first ran in the April 9, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.