Rating: 
Summary: good stuff
Review: I picked this up on a lark and liked it a lot. Nersesian's writing is reminiscent of Jennifer Belle's --- they write about a life in New York, the REAL New York, the one not shown on Friends. There is no one-dimensional Ross or Rachel here -- but there is a lot of multi-layered interlocking relationships between all sorts of characters, whether they know it or not.Mary Bellanova has cooked a pasta dinner for her boyfriend Primo and is mad he ignores her, eyes fixed on the TV -- till she realizes he is dead. She inherits his dog, Numb, whom she must take to the dogrun. While helping Primo's slightly-addled mother collect Primo's ashes and learn the cause of his death, she starts to learn a lot she never knew -- what his true age is (he added and subtracted as he saw fit), his myriad relationships (apparently many that went on behind her back), his past life as a painter. In a fit of curiosity to meet the woman Primo loved most, Mary hunts down his ex-wife Suzy Wott, a Cambodian stripper, now leader of a girl band. She goes to the band audition hoping to take Suzy aside and let her know of Primo's demise, but instead passes the audition and joins the band, without telling Suzy who she is or what she knows. Things at the dogrun get weird with her acquaintance of the Tattoo Man, she loses her temping job and goes to work at Kinko's, etc etc. But it is not just some eclectic hodgepodge -- everything does tie in together at the end.
Rating: 
Summary: not bad, drags in the middle.
Review: i read nersesian's other book, and thought that this would be good too. this book, written by a man, has a wonderful female voice, and although this woman is a not your typical twenty-something, she propells the book forward. the only fault i really find with this story is the timing. you read pages and pages of blah blah until the story really picks up, and suddenly the blah blah seems more meaningful. all i can say is don't give up on it during the middle, the ending is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: *
Review: I thought this book was interesting because I totally forgot that it was written by a man. It had such an interesting feminine touch.
Rating:
Summary: You'll laugh -- I promise
Review: I'm an impatient reader, I'll be the first to admit. Very often when I'm about halfway through with reading a novel, I'll skip to the back to see how it ends, or I'll often glance at the page number on the bottom and wonder, "how many more pages of this do I have to read?" But I loved Nersesian's Dogrun. Truly enjoyed it. I was thoroughly entertained -- and laughed frequently, which rarely happens even when I'm reading a novel.
The setting of the book is New York's East Village during the 1990s. The East Village stands as a kind of archetype "hipster" enclave (famous for its long history of resident artists and writers and burnouts). But what makes Dogrun work is it's sarcastic comic protagonist, Mary Bellanova. She comes home "after a long day of temping" to find her boyfriend, Primo, zonked out again watching TV. She yells at him, makes him supper and only much later realizes he isn't zonked out -- he's dead! A hilarious beginning, which sets the tone for the rest of the book. From there, starts a Citizen Kane-like exploration of who this boyfriend (who she apparently hardly knew) really was. That's the structural device that propels the narrative forward and Nersesian provides many madcap, picaresque adventures along the way, which includes Mary looking up his mother and ex-girlfriends and lovers.
The book, in part, is about Mary the "artist" (the protagonist is a would-be author), whose time may be running out (she 29, about to turn 30 -- signaling the end of her protracted adolescence).
The book is also, in a big way, about bohemia - or in this case the East Village, which represents it. (As much as the protagonist comes to realize that Bohemia is not a place, it's a state of mind -- or should we say a dream?) As in The Losers' Club by Richard Perez (which another reviewer mentioned), we're given a tour of this unique, offbeat place - pre-9-11. "In the East Village, that soiled and unkept fountain of youth, there was no such thing as growing old gracefully," writes Nersesian. The pressure is on for Mary to do something with her life. Working for minimum wage at Kinko's no longer is a responsible option. "When you're young, you have all these chances, and with time you blow them, one after the other," Nersesian writes elsewhere. Since this a book about an artist, it also greatly involves failure and humiliation. (Failure and humiliation being the staple of any artist's life.) Learning to face certain realities and exasperating "market-place" expectations.
But along the way, there's great humor. Pratfall slapstick mixed with goofball sarcasm. I laughed on almost every page. If I have one complaint (or two), it's that the book should've ended a little earlier (page 235, for instance). Also the first half of the book is more carefully written than the last half in which Nersesian undercooks and overstuffs the narrative, dropping in too many characters and whacky mis-adventures -- every party needs to come to an end. But that's a minor complaint. Obviously, I enjoyed the book well enough to write this long review. This funny book get an A grade from me!
Rating:
Summary: Tour the East Village
Review: Mary Bellanova comes home from work one day to find her boyfriend dead. She starts to track down his old girlfriends and finds she doesn't know as much about him as she thought. What follows is hilarious and touching while staying a frighteningly real look at life in the East Village of NYC. Arthur Nersesian develops a great (and occasionally-insane) female character that anyone can identify with. I picked up the book based on its front cover and my familiarity with the Tompkins Square Dog Run where a bit of the action takes place, but now I'm hooked on Nersesian's work. With my having just moved away from the East Village, this book is like coming home.
Rating: 
Summary: Good grief . . .
Review: Name-dropping and allegedly cool settings don't make a novel - and neither does stiff prose, 2-D caricatures instead of *characters* or a laundry list of literay cliches. Ever watch a show like Saved By The Bell or Dawson's Creek, when they parade around a few punk kids, a couple of goths and maybe a tattooed, pierced "freak"? This novel trots out laughably cliched versions of characters in a more clumsy and chinless way than those shows' attempts to create "interesting" people. Our narrator's musings on "what life is like" in the city as a career-handicapped young single person is juvenile at best. How many 2-cent words can one use to describe how evil and intrusuve places like Starbuck's Coffe and Loews Multiplexes are, only to then completely devalue any of that angst when she willingly and thoughtlessly patronizes these purportedly "uncool" establishments? Nersesian uses trite angsty proclamations to give the narrator "edge", yet fails in every way to make her a person of any REAL opinion, thought or idea. The character development here is severely lacking - our precious narrator is of course attractive and insecure yet spunky - and her friends/cohorts are just useless copies of copies from other city-centric "young people" tales. The whole punk band subplot device is just plain silly too - Armistead Maupin himself would stay away from such silly B-grade stuff. The whole Primo/Joe From Upstairs "thing" was so devoid of any real tension and mystery - I was thoroughly disappointed.
And the dialogue? I expect more from a writer who taught college English for close to a decade than One Life To Live-styled banter - especially in a work so focused on young people and the way they live. Even more insulting? The final page of the book, where "MTV Books" (insert sarcastic laughter here) refers to this author as "the young, the hip and the up-and-coming." I mean, come on.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious -- and fun!
Review: Nersesian seems to the master of the madcap Downtown NYC novel. In Dogrun (like in the F**k-up) he's done it again. We follow the trail of a deceased boyfriend whose trail leads us through a tour of the surreal of world of New York City's East Village. Not since The Losers' Club by Richard Perez have I read a more vividly rendered book depicting that whole scene. This novel is a blast! Wacked out and funny! Also recommended: The Losers' Club, the F**k-up, Manhattan Loverboy
Rating:
Summary: Good quick read
Review: Picked this up based on cover & description only. It was worth it. Never read anything by Nersesian before. Does a great job at writing as a female. Read the book in 2 days
Rating:
Summary: CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER
Review: Thats Nersesian. Clever. Order this book now.
Its hilarious. No more review needed..buy it!
Rating:
Summary: CLEVER CLEVER CLEVER
Review: Thats Nersesian. Clever. Order this book now.
Its hilarious. No more review needed..buy it!
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