Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

In Matt Guzman’s Rieden Reece and the Broken Moon, Ri Reece expects another ordinary trip home from school until a colossal figure tears itself free from the moon and climbs through his bedroom window, claiming that Ri summoned him from the future. By the next morning, every adult in town has a black cosmic void where a human face should be, reality begins breaking apart beneath falling moon fragments, and violent strangers from other universes start hunting them across Bakersfield. Ri discovers that the disaster connects to missing memories hidden inside a mysterious book, along with visions tied to his own future grave. As the damage spreading through Earth worsens, Ri follows the unpredictable being called Rozul through collapsing versions of his hometown, searching for the lost figure who may hold the only path toward restoring reality before his mother disappears completely.

Matt Guzman’s Rieden Reece and the Broken Moon places middle-grade readers inside a collapsing universe and a race across fractured realities after the moon splits open above California. The futuristic technology is wonderful, with things like a moon shard capable of slicing through spacetime to carve open alternate universes. This is all situated in the world-building, where ordinary life keeps operating beside cosmic disasters. Ri is extremely easy to like because his reactions feel honest in ways younger readers will immediately understand. He gets embarrassed after classmates spread rumors about him and a girl, and he worries constantly about disappointing his exhausted mother. The writing style uses energetic language that suits middle-grade readers perfectly, while keeping the science fiction ideas understandable through Ri’s perspective. Readers who enjoy reality-bending adventures, strange alien worlds, fast-moving danger, or stories similar in spirit to works by Rick Riordan or Brandon Mull will enjoy this book very much.