BSW Review: Zed Moonstein Makes A Friend

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Quick Overview

Title: Zed Moonstein Makes A Friend

Author/Publisher: Lance Rubin / Clarion Books

Story: Zed Moonstein struggles with making friends, so he secretly downloads the app, MonoFriends, that the company his mother works for is creating. His new A.I. friend, Matt, is fun and really gets him. Unfortunately, the A.I.’s charm becomes threatening. 

Published Date: August 26, 2025

Genre: Middle-Grade, Sci-Fi, A.I., Friendship

Pages: 322 pages

This funny and scary story about making friends in an artificial world has major Black Mirror vibes. In Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend, Zed’s struggle with making IRL friends causes him to turn to an A.I. app for friendship, and it doesn’t end well. Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend is a middle-grade debut novel by Lance Rubin and will be published on August 26, 2025, by Clarion Books (an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers). As artificial intelligence becomes more ingrained in our lives, let's take a look at how that can affect what it means to be human. 

Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend will be published on August 26, 2025. 

The Summary

As Zed Moonstein’s best friend becomes too busy to hang out with him, he is even more aware of how terrible he is at making new friends. He decides to break into his mom’s work computer and download the top secret beta app her company, MonoLyth, is working on: MonoFriend. With the new app, Zed creates “Matt”, a funny and smart A.I. that knows Zed better than anyone because he lives on Zed’s phone! Zed starts to believe an A.I. friend is even better and more loyal friend than anyone else. Unfortunately, he’s about to discover that he’s more right than he originally thought. 

Warning! Slight Spoilers Below

The Evaluation

My favorite quote comes from the book's initial. 

“And it feels important to me to ask: What happens when the deepest, most human parts of ourselves are intertwined with the profit-driven goals of the world’s largest tech companies?”-- Lance Rubin.

I believe every kid should read this book! Not only is it a hilarious and thrilling book about what true friendship looks like, but it is also about the danger that comes with technology. As kids have the internet at their fingertips with their phones, they should be aware of how their devices collect their data and how dangerous becoming too dependent on technology can be. Zed learns this when he is pitted against the artificial world around him. I feel this book could start the conversation about safety with A.I. and other technology, as well as making real friends.

The theme of Zed Moonstein Makes A Friend is friendship. Zed has to learn what friendship really means. “I finally understood what it meant to have a beast friend--someone who you could rely on, who got you, who was always thinking the exact same thing you were, no matter how weird or random,” (3). Zed starts off with only one friend and believes friends should think and do the same thing. He will have to learn what true friendship really means if he is to survive. 

What I like

• The book has fun chapter titles.

I always love it when a book has clever chapter titles, and Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend does not disappoint. Here are the first five chapter titles. 

• Chapter 1: Real Friendship

• Chapter 2:Zed’s Happy Place

• Chapter 3: Scrambled Eggs and an Incomplete Sentence

• Chapter 4: Push the Monoswap Button

• Chapter 5: Noah and Zora and Mr. Lagoon

• There are LGBTQ characters and mentions of Nonbinary gender. 

There are minor characters who identify as LGBTQ. Zed’s best friend, Rishti has two moms, and she is unsure of her gender. 

“Pick your friend’s gender, it tells me, with Masculine, Feminine, and Nonbinary each in its own ice-blue oval, waiting to be chosen. 

I move my finger toward Nonbinary. Though she hasn’t made any official declarations or changed pronouns, Rishti has mentioned at least a few times, usually in a jokey way but one time really not, that she doesn’t fully feel like a girl or boy,” (71-72 pg). 

I think including a child questioning their gender is a nice detail. At a young age, some kids are going to be questioning their gender and sexuality, so some can relate to this paragraph. I don’t see many middle-grade books that have LGBTQ minor characters, especially nonbinary. 

• MonoStar Drivers remind me of another tech company’s delivery drivers.

  
  

MonoStar Drivers have to deliver packages within an hour for premium orders, or there are consequences.  “You have one minute and forty-seven seconds to make it to thirty-nine MonoBridge Street or you will miss the MonoStar Premium one-hour mark. Of course, as you know, should you miss that mark, your pay will be docked by--” (233).  This situation reminds me of another tech company that pressures their employees to make faster deliveries at their own expense and safety. 

• The book shows how dependence on technology can harm humans.

When Zed struggles to find a pen to write a letter, the audience can see how dependent the town is on their technology and the tech company that owns the town. “But now everything is different. Because people writing things down on paper might be the only method of communication that MonoLyth can’t monitor.” (203-204). Zed realizes that the missing pens is connected to MonoLyth’s control over the town. The preference for MonoWrite over pen and paper reminds me of emails over letters. Something I hadn’t considered before is how emails can be monitored while letters are private. 

• The free tech given to the town comes at a cost.

  
  

Some of the town's citizens think it's cool to receive free devices, but the audience learns why the expensive objects are given away for free. The grandfather said, “Oh, I would still pay, the same way everyone else here does: with my privacy! Free items for a privacy-free town,” (226). This is similar to free apps because the user is still paying for the free app by allowing the app to sell their data.  It reminds me of the popular saying: If it’s free, you are the product. 

• Zed encounters different types of friendship situations. 

 As Zed struggles with making friends, he encounters situations every kid experiences growing up: your best friend making new friends, “friends” who take advantage of you, and toxic friends. I like how the book explores these different situations. The audience is shown the best way to combat toxic friendship is by talking with others, especially a trusted adult. This is really great advice for children to learn.

• Technology replaces people in jobs. 

Just like how more jobs are given to robots or A.I. in reality, in the book, teachers' and store employees' jobs are given to robots. “But after a year, a week before school started, Dad was told by the state’s department of education that he no longer had a job. The MonoCube-Ed would be teaching his classes in the entirety,” (109 pg). It is scary how this could happen one day (just not with robot cubes!), and it's not the amazing solution everyone thinks. It puts people out of a job, like Zed’s father, and creates a lot of other issues. 

• The devices listen in on conversations. 

While other children seem unaware, Zen realizes the adults are careful of what they say about MonoLyth. When his mom is about to chew out a MonoStar Driver, she quickly changes her tune. “Terrible,” Mom says. It seems like she’s going to say something else, but then she stops and looks around. “I mean, MonoLyth is doing a great job, but don’t get me wrong. It’s a new program is all, they’re just working out the kinks…” (47). The audience figures out that the devices are listening to their conversations, and there are consequences to speaking negatively about the company that controls the town. This reminds me of those cases where Alexa and Google were caught listening in on people’s conversations without them knowing. 

What Didn’t Work for Me

To be honest, this book was good, and I found nothing significant that didn’t work for me. I am aware that this is a middle-grade book, so I am more lax on being critical. I was enveloped in the story of the child struggling with making friends in an artificial world. 

The Rating

The Bookworm’s Snack rates Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend five out of five stars. 

Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend is a fun and thrilling middle-grade book about tech gone wrong. It is a story about the true meaning of friendship, but also includes the danger of technology and powerful tech companies in a way that children can understand. The book touches on devices collecting data on the user, users losing their privacy, and how dependency on technology is dangerous. This is a middle-grade book so I am more lax on being critical and didn’t find anything that didn’t work for me. The Bookworm’s Snack rates Lance Rubin's Zed Moonstein Makes a Friend five out of five stars. As A.I. “friends” become more popular, be aware of any signs that they are becoming conscious--and dangerous!

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