What do you think?
Rate this book
Meat Puppets
Mitch Larkin has an uncanny knack for knowing when someone will become famous. But when he hedges his bets on a risky asset-the volatile Syd Morris-Mitch realizes he's met his match. Madcap market-manipulation ensues in this stylish satire of aspiring actors and experimental investors.
- GenresFiction
258 pages, Paperback
Published May 5, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 22, 2026
I want to start this off by saying that I did laugh out loud several times while reading this. The very concept is hilarious--a guy named Mitch Larkin keeps getting into relationships with burgeoning celebrities so he can sell memorabilia he gets from them at an inflated price, and he decides to begin a human stock market with his financial advisor to take advantage of this propensity. The characters often strike a good balance between being both sympathetic and loathable, tragic and hilarious, charming and infuriating. The novel *resolves* which is certainly not something to take for granted around these parts. It's a clear satire on the commodification of the individual, in part arguing for itself as a successor to Infinite Jest's world of *everything* being commodified. It also calls to mind Wendy Brown's writings on the neoliberal homo oeconomicus, which reframes human beings as pure human capital, hollowing out democracy and eroding interpersonal relationships by making us view each other through the lens of economic competition. What better encapsulates both these ideas than a literal human stock market?
But to that point: I can't really get into the writing itself. David Foster Wallace haunts every scene, every page, every sentence, maybe not every clause but like 75% of them. I couldn't help but say to myself, "Yep, that's from Infinite Jest, yep, that's from Infinite Jest..." Designer drugs, addict groups, self-deprecating footnotes drawing attention to the artifice of the text, insertion of colloquialism into otherwise academic fragments, the bleakly comic ways that several father figures perish, the meta-essayistic fragments about the author documenting film sets and acting classes. I certainly enjoyed working my way through the novel and look forward to whatever is coming next from Hannah Smart, but I can't help but feel that this book is still quite embryonic.
But to that point: I can't really get into the writing itself. David Foster Wallace haunts every scene, every page, every sentence, maybe not every clause but like 75% of them. I couldn't help but say to myself, "Yep, that's from Infinite Jest, yep, that's from Infinite Jest..." Designer drugs, addict groups, self-deprecating footnotes drawing attention to the artifice of the text, insertion of colloquialism into otherwise academic fragments, the bleakly comic ways that several father figures perish, the meta-essayistic fragments about the author documenting film sets and acting classes. I certainly enjoyed working my way through the novel and look forward to whatever is coming next from Hannah Smart, but I can't help but feel that this book is still quite embryonic.
May 23, 2026
"He's a bit of a sad klown," Blake added, holding his fists to his eyes and twisting them back and forth in a mock gesture of krying.
I have a simultaneous grievance and compliment which is entirely related to the quote above, which is: Blake and Syd’s chemistry as characters was explosive and I wanted more of it! I don’t know how Smart got that chemistry down so well it’s almost as though she didn’t know she was on fire enough to like pour some gasoline on it. That’s my grievance.
Okay, next up Mitch and Syd’s relationship. I’m not sure I’ve digested it yet I mean I’m writing this the same day I finished it and I wish I’d sticky noted specific moments, but there’s such a nebulous feeling I have for them and their relationship which has got to be intentional as the two don’t exactly know how to fit into the right hole-shaped pieces they need of each other. As absurd as Syd’s history is re father figures it does confuse me but still gives me a weird deep-cutting kinda of distress from it all. And on the Syd subject I felt like cradling him like he was my baby boy. I see some authors try to put their characters into this role of how their other characters and presumably also the audience are meant to perceive them and yet my feelings do not align with them and so break my engagement with the text and sort of distrust the author for not understanding who exactly it is they’re writing—but for Syd it’s another story. For Syd I feel like I wanted to be something of a surrogate father but with some something else mixed in. It was nice to actually get the response to a character that I was asked for by the author.
Circling back to my grievance/compliment, I really did feel that I wanted so much more time with Blake/Syd’s and Mitch/Syd’s relationships (also Glen/Syd’s. IDK probably I’m just greedy but I think the I guess the way Smart’s expertise lies in the way she unfurls a relationship for us. That’s the sparkle that caught my eye. And in a way, and I know this is once again catering to my own tastes, in a way its meta-ness (which I know is central and key and I was interested in the nebulosity of this journalistic fiction within a fiction and the idea of mistrusting a meat puppet because I was sitting near that ending thinking jesus character Hannah’s some kind of monster right now) but its meta-ness FOR ME was a downgrade to what I love to focus on in Smart’s work, which conflicts with the way she wants to and can use that meta weapon quite acutely and severely, and so can’t really qualify as a general complaint about a shortcoming because it can only shortcome if it shoots for the goal and doesn’t get there. Which it does get there, meta-wise. If any of that garble makes sense.
One real disadvantage I do think is that if you’ve read DFW then he’s really inescapably there and present on every single page. Smart’s a fantastic author but I think to move even further forth in her career (which is undeniably possible) she needs to pick up Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence.
Anyhow… shoutout to my baby boy Syd<3 hybristophilia wins<3
I have a simultaneous grievance and compliment which is entirely related to the quote above, which is: Blake and Syd’s chemistry as characters was explosive and I wanted more of it! I don’t know how Smart got that chemistry down so well it’s almost as though she didn’t know she was on fire enough to like pour some gasoline on it. That’s my grievance.
Okay, next up Mitch and Syd’s relationship. I’m not sure I’ve digested it yet I mean I’m writing this the same day I finished it and I wish I’d sticky noted specific moments, but there’s such a nebulous feeling I have for them and their relationship which has got to be intentional as the two don’t exactly know how to fit into the right hole-shaped pieces they need of each other. As absurd as Syd’s history is re father figures it does confuse me but still gives me a weird deep-cutting kinda of distress from it all. And on the Syd subject I felt like cradling him like he was my baby boy. I see some authors try to put their characters into this role of how their other characters and presumably also the audience are meant to perceive them and yet my feelings do not align with them and so break my engagement with the text and sort of distrust the author for not understanding who exactly it is they’re writing—but for Syd it’s another story. For Syd I feel like I wanted to be something of a surrogate father but with some something else mixed in. It was nice to actually get the response to a character that I was asked for by the author.
Circling back to my grievance/compliment, I really did feel that I wanted so much more time with Blake/Syd’s and Mitch/Syd’s relationships (also Glen/Syd’s. IDK probably I’m just greedy but I think the I guess the way Smart’s expertise lies in the way she unfurls a relationship for us. That’s the sparkle that caught my eye. And in a way, and I know this is once again catering to my own tastes, in a way its meta-ness (which I know is central and key and I was interested in the nebulosity of this journalistic fiction within a fiction and the idea of mistrusting a meat puppet because I was sitting near that ending thinking jesus character Hannah’s some kind of monster right now) but its meta-ness FOR ME was a downgrade to what I love to focus on in Smart’s work, which conflicts with the way she wants to and can use that meta weapon quite acutely and severely, and so can’t really qualify as a general complaint about a shortcoming because it can only shortcome if it shoots for the goal and doesn’t get there. Which it does get there, meta-wise. If any of that garble makes sense.
One real disadvantage I do think is that if you’ve read DFW then he’s really inescapably there and present on every single page. Smart’s a fantastic author but I think to move even further forth in her career (which is undeniably possible) she needs to pick up Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence.
Anyhow… shoutout to my baby boy Syd<3 hybristophilia wins<3
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 27, 2026
Meat Puppets, like the rest of Smart's work, is hilarious and extremely clever. I could hardly put the book down once I really got started, the breakneck pace and the interweaving of plotlines was addicting!
The best part of course was the relationship between Syd and Mitch, which in retrospect we get less of on the page than I would've expected but everything that's there paints a whole picture and everything that covers only Syd or only Mitch really elucidates their dynamic.
I only finished it last night so I'm still turning it over and over in my head, but I would definitely recommend. Several laugh out loud moments, a fun and thematically rich framing device, and a whole cast of characters that are at the same time loveable and total dicks.
I can't wait to see what's next from Smart!
The best part of course was the relationship between Syd and Mitch, which in retrospect we get less of on the page than I would've expected but everything that's there paints a whole picture and everything that covers only Syd or only Mitch really elucidates their dynamic.
I only finished it last night so I'm still turning it over and over in my head, but I would definitely recommend. Several laugh out loud moments, a fun and thematically rich framing device, and a whole cast of characters that are at the same time loveable and total dicks.
I can't wait to see what's next from Smart!
July 2, 2026
Meat Puppets is a brief novel that deserves to be read repeated instantly you finish it. I read it once over a few weeks and in one day over holiday. While it is packed with humour, themes about the commodity of 15 mins of fame, and 4th wall breaking it is not afraid to take a breath and get serious and dark. It's staying power is getting me to think about the faces I put on for others but more importantly how I acquired those faces in the first place. Accountability. How others view some sort of "purpose" i present to the world. If you're going to read it once youd do a disservice not to read it immediately after a day or 2 of reflecting. Excited for more novels from Hannah Smart.
May 15, 2026
Meat Puppets is great; it's post modern and witty and literary, but filled with tons of pep and energy. The occasionally slow down is done with such intention and pulled off. The twisted and super-faceted relationship between Mitch and Syd just feeds so much drama, in such great prose, that I ended up reading it in two sittings. And once you finish you'll want to loop right back to the start!
My book of the summer.
My book of the summer.
June 27, 2026
Breakneck/ madcap, contains hijinks. Enjoyed the core relationships (Syd/Mitch, Mitch/Hayley, Syd/Glen) and wish we had gotten more time with everyone, especially Hayley, the sort of moral center of the book. Would also love to know more about character!Hannah and how she differs from author!Hannah.
May 30, 2026
So fun to read—funny and thought-provoking.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews