For Remy, planning her mother's fifth wedding is not a surprise. A cynic when it comes to love, Remy's life has been a flash of watching her mother cycle through different boyfriends, different husbands, and different attempts at happily-ever-after. Remy's own father, a musician, never even met her before he passed away, leaving behind a song, "This Lullaby", as his only legacy and gift to his daughter. Needless to say, Remy's life has been meticulously planned, not around love, but around preventing it. Of her rules, staying away from musicians ranks at the top of the list, swiftly followed by ending every relationship she's been in before becoming emotionally attached. Now, the summer before her freshman year at Stanford University, Remy has everything figured - or she thinks she does. Until, that is, Dexter bumps into her and forces her to re-evaluate everything she thought she knew about love, life, and family. I picked up This Lullaby desperately needing to immerse myself back into the Young Adult genre. Sarah Dessen, though sticking to a rather predictable formula, nevertheless manages to stun audiences every time, using her words and characters to weave together the best aspects of the Young Adult Contemporary genre. With a Dessen novel, I can always expect a realistic protagonist, one whose flaws are even more obvious than her strengths; a swoon-worthy love interest who never "heals" the heroine, but merely helps her reach the stage where she can "heal" herself; strong female friendships with meaningful conversations; and complex familial ties. In all these aspects, This Lullaby did not disappoint in the least. It has always surprised me that Dessen is never criticized for writing unlikable heroines when most authors most definitely are. In retrospect, though, it is clear that Dessen's protagonists are balanced, both their light and dark qualities ones which readers are able to connect to. Remy, however, doesn't fit into this box perfectly, which I swiftly welcomed. From the beginning itself, Remy is cynical and indifferent. When it comes time to break up with her boyfriend, she performs the task with a cold and singular type of devotion, reciting the lines without thinking about them because this is a path she has traveled down before - many, many times. Yet, despite her plethora of boyfriends and past sexual experiences, Dessen draws a firm line, making it clear that Remy's actions do not label her as a slut. Instead, we grow to love and appreciate Remy, despite her prickliness and especially despite the fact that she is not the simpering virgin that dominates literature. Dexter, the cute musician who is drawn to Remy from the moment he lays eyes on her, is an utterly swoon-worthy addition to this cast. With Dexter and Remy, their relationship is slow and meaningful, carefully forcing Remy to break her own rules. It is her friends, in particular, who notice this change, though not all of them encourage it. While Remy's friends do not factor into a large portion of the plot, they are nevertheless present and distinct in their personalities, both supporting her decisions and offering their own. It doesn't come across as the classic one-best-friend-to-rule-them-all type of friendship, but it is unique and important in its own right. Even with Dexter, their relationship hardly follows the classic story arc. While it is, admittedly, peppered with a few circumstances which have been done before, I enjoyed its originality and, moreover, Remy's growing discomfort with her attachment to Dexter. The crux of This Lullaby lies not in the Remy accepting her love for Dexter, but rather in her accepting the idea of love at all. Even within her own family, Remy cannot comprehend how her older brother has fallen in love; how did he make that decision? It doesn't hit Remy that love isn't a controllable emotion; that no matter how hard she tries, she either has to give in and fall at some point or merely make herself unhappy. In an effort to ensure she never becomes her mother, Remy fails to see that her mother's re-marriages are not a sign of failure, but rather a sign of hope; of trying at love, again and again and again. Remy's ultimate growth is a combination of her familial influence, her friendships, her blossoming relationship with Dexter over a summer which is coming to an end, and so much more as well. Dessen's novels contain such realistic issues and focus on them so thoroughly, with single-minded devotion, that their conclusions are intensely satisfying. It seems as if, these days, more and more contemporary novels seem to tackle on a multitude of issues from relationship problems to self-discovery and sibling strife all in one novel when, really, Sarah Dessen figured out the key a long time ago. This Lullaby is not my favorite Dessen novel, not by a long shot, but it is the one I will remember with the most clarity (if for nothing else than for the fact that there is a Potato Song within these pages). If more authors wrote the way Dessen did, you'd be hard-pressed to get be out of the Contemporary YA section...ever.
I don't know, I just didn't like this book. I mean, it was pretty well written I guess, just not my thing. I could NOT relate to Remy in the slightest. She was extremely unlikable, and a compelte bitch, and, for the record, admitting you're a bitch doesn't redeem you. The way she went from guy to guy, dumping them on a schedule, treating them as numbers on a chart and not as human beings...was frankly disgusting. She supposedly has an excuse, because her mom remarried four times. Big deal. You'd have to live under a rock to think treating people like such crap is actually okay. Don't even get me started on Remy's supposed "friends." Seriously, what the hell was up with Chloe? That girl is more like an enemy than a friend. The others were all right, but not interesting or likable at all. The ONLY likable character in the entire book was Dexter, and Remy treated him like crap on the bottom of her shoe throughout the entire book. Even when she realizes she actually really did LIKE him, she broke up with JUST so she could break up with him. I'm sorry, I know I was supposed to feel so bad for Remy, but really?? Why? She's a bitch, a slut, and totally selfish. It's not like her life was THAT bad. Big deal, she had a few stepfathers. At least she had a mother and brother. And knowing that some relationships don't last is hardly an excuse for treating a really nice guy who loved her like he was her freaking "Ken doll." Yes, the book was funny, and I couldn't put it down, but that was mostly because I wanted to know if Remy ever stopped being evil. I don't know, I just think Dexter was wasted on this stupid book. Maybe I'm cold, but I felt no sympathy for Remy. I just couldn't. She spends the whole book boo-hooing about how she lost her virginity to someone she did't like. Well, who the heck cares? It's not like she was raped. She CHOSE to do that. She KNEW what she was doing, and did it anyway. Oh, and the way she was complaining about having Dexter pursue her was SO annoying. Oh, poor me, an awesome guy likes me. What did I ever do to deserve such hardships? Plus the way she saw all of his characteristics as flaws just pissed me off. Well, he clumsy and messy and doesn't tie his shoes, so he can't possibly ever be a husband. Um, how do those specific traits equate to such an extreme? What's so bad about being clumsy, anyway? I think it's freakin' adorable. I mean, when she called him a freaking shoelace to be tied, I wanted to jump into the book and throttle her. AND she never apologized for insulting him, and of course he was too nice to ask. Remy wouldn't lower herself to apologize to him. Not even after she falsely accused him at the end. No, she couldn't possibly say sorry. She'll just have to kiss him, becayse he's not worhty of an apology. Okay, so it's obvious now that I just hate Remy.Plus, this books was SO predictable. The second they mentioned the secretary at the beginning during the wedding, I knew what was going to happen/had been happening. It couldn't have been more obvious had she come right out and said it. And this is just my personal opinion, but I hate authors that use charcters as nothing more than tools. Like every single one of Remy's boyfriends AND friends was a plot tool, nothing more. That being said, I can't say I didn't LIKE the book, because I did, though it was majorly depressing (though it is supposedly uplifting?? But how??). Mostly, I just liked Dexter. I AM in the minority here, though, because apparently this is Dessen's best book. Well...I'm on my second of hers right now, and I already like it better than this one, so maybe I'm just weird. Who knows. Maybe I'll ask Remy for some advice on how to be a heartless bitch, that way I'll be able to understand her better. :D
What do You think about This Lullaby (2004)?
After Just Listen, let’s just say that I wasn’t all that impressed with Sarah Dessen. And to be honest? I just couldn’t see why she was so popular.. so with great reluctance (a month after reading Just Listen in fact,) I went ahead and read This Lullaby. Well, this review is me eating my words: Sarah Dessen deserves all the praise she has gotten/gets.I loved it! (Yes, this is even despite my having come across what one reviewer calls the “the Sarah Dessen Syndrome,” of a female protagonist who is most likely troubled (either because of her family, friends or emotions,) who meets a boy (preferably crush/swoon worthy) the latter most likely helping her get over her issues. Remy cannot wait to get away from home and be independent; her mother and her mother’s relationships have drilled into her what she doesn’t want to become. Thank gosh, she’s got a brother and friends who are more or less just as cynical as she is, and consequently, very accepting of her quirks. Quirks? From being an anything goes party girl to an almost sort of anal retentive perfectionist who requires everything in place and everything pegged. Then came Dexter; he is everything she normally wouldn’t go for- sloppy, clumsy, and without plans. Yet, they just click. Until her quirks get in the way, she just over thought everything! One would think that it was Dexter that got me to change my mind, but nope.. it was all Remy. Her hard-ass-ness was not all there was to her. Dexter really got her and I loved that! She really was a softy, even if she tended to overreact and sometimes overanalyze things. And yeah, Dexter did in fact play a role in my becoming a Dessen fan. I do hope her other stories live up to how good This Lullaby is. 4/5
—Isamlq
"This Lullaby" was my first Dessen book and will probably be the last. It has nothing to do with the writing, but this kind of fairly depressing YA chick lit a la Jennifer Weiner is simply not my cup of tea.This book is normally described as a super sweet romance, but it never felt like one to me. Rather, it was a story of a girl disillusioned in love who finally allowed herself to open herself up to an honest relationship with a man.There was really nothing wrong with this story. The characters were very well drawn in comparison to those in many other YA novels I've read. They were compelling and understandable and their relationships with each other felt real. Dexter as the main male lead was extremely likable. Remy appeared a little harder to understand and appreciate. For her 18 years of age she was awfully negative and cynical and I found it very hard at times to remain in her head, because it seemed to me she never took any pleasure in anything, even in her short relationship with Dexter. Maybe I would have understood her better if her personality was explored more thoroughly: Why exactly was she so angry with her father, after all, he never did her any harm, he died when she was just a toddler? What made her clean up her act and abandon her promiscuous life style and drug use? Why, with all her disillusionment in love, did she keep having these 2-months romances? What exactly did she want from these relationships? I also wanted to know more about Remy's friends, especially about always in a background Jess, and about Chloe, who was as cynical as Remy, but what was her reason? And lastly, these 4 girls seemed strangely too mature and jaded for their age. Throughout the book I kept thinking that if you take the words "high school graduation" and "college" out of the story, you basically get on your hands a group of "Sex and the City" girls."This Lullaby" was by no means a bad book, it was a fast and engaging story, but it left me fairly unsatisfied and not really inspired to read any other books by the author.Reading challenge: #29.
—Tatiana
Remy Starr doesn't understand love. To her, a relationship is basically one huge analytical equation. The process she uses is finding a cute guy, hooking up, spending some time together, and breaking up before things get too serious. Although this makes Remy sound like a class A "vixen", it's hard to blame her callous treatment of others hearts when her own dad died when she was barely a child, and her mother has recently announced her fifth wedding. She is looking forward to getting away from it all by attending Stanford on the other side of the country once summer is over. What she doesn't plan on is meeting a singer (musicians are specifically on her no date list) named Dexter that just might be able to sway her heart in another direction.Sarah Dessen is such a talented author. It becomes quite apparent after reading only three of her novels that she seems to be utilizing the same plot over and over with different characters, but somehow, some way, she makes it work. This Lullaby was a bit melodramatic at times, going a little bit overboard with the theme "unbreakable girl with the cold heart", but Dessen managed to capture what true love is really about and how it can take your breath away in just an instant. Also, all of her characters are beautifully developed and makes you care about what happens to them and how they deal with the crises in their lives. A job well done, or rather, a novel well written.
—Thomas
