Product Description

Remy is a cynic when it comes to love. Let down by her absent musician dad and witness to her mother's four failed marriages, she doesn't intend ever to let anyone that close. So when Dexter comes crashing into her life, why is it suddenly so hard for Remy to follow her own rules? He’s everything she hates: messy, disorganised, impulsive, and worst of all, a musician like her absent father...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10602 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Kirkus Reviews
'Remy's voice rings true with realistic dialogue and emotional traumas.'

Review
'Remy's voice rings true with realistic dialogue and emotional traumas. Insightful writing, distinctive characters, and a contemporary scene where sex and music rule, compose a melody worth reading.' (Kirkus Reviews )

'This modern-day romance narrated by a cynical heroine offers a balance of wickedly funny moments and universal teen traumas.' (Publisher's Weekly )

' ...a winning story about coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.' (School Library Journal )

School Library Journal
' ...a winning story about coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.'

Customer Reviews

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
Sarah Dessen's THIS LULLABY is one of the best teen books I've ever read. It's the story of Remy, a girl who has no faith in love. Part of this is because her own father never even saw her, only wrote a now-famous song, called "This Lullaby," about her before he died. It certainly doesn't help that her mother has been married four times, and, at the beginning of the novel, is about to have her fifth wedding. Remy says about her mother's marriages, "She takes on husbands the way other people change their hair color: out of boredom, listlessness, or just feeling that this next one will fix everything, once and for all."

Remy likes to feel in control of things when she's got a boyfriend. She knows all about getting into relationships, the first romantic rush, and ending them before there's any emotional attachment. She's almost always the one to dump guys, not the other way around. She's got plenty of practice at it, too.

One day, at the car dealership owned by her mother's next husband, she meets a guy named Dexter. He's very determined to get to know Remy, and, at first, she thinks he's ridiculous and ignores him. Dexter, however, is persistent. When the two finally get together, everyone is shocked that Remy's staying in the relationship. Dexter is so many things Remy could never put up with. He's messy and impulsive, but, most of all, he's a musician. Until Dexter came along, Remy had a "no musician" rule, and now she's broken it.

Signs point to Remy ending this relationship and not looking back. Everyone thinks that's what will happen. Everyone except Dexter, who wants it to be more than a summer thing, who has faith in their relationship. How will it all end?

This is an amazing young adult book by a brilliant author. Sarah Dessen, author of several other books including THAT SUMMER and SOMEONE LIKE YOU, does an awesome job of keeping the reader's attention throughout THIS LULLABY. She does it with her original story, told in Remy's unique voice. It doesn't hurt that Sarah Dessen is great at creating fresh, original, believable characters. Thoughtful and powerful, this book also has its moments that will make readers laugh, which is a nice change of pace in the story. Every aspect of this novel surpasses expectations.

Reviewed by: Jocelyn Pearce

A hilarious, but heart-felt book
This Lullaby, by Sarah Dessen, is probably one of the most complicated but interesting and funny books that I've ever read--with all of those three things effecting themselves upon the reader at the same time.
Remy, 18, is just out of high school and running between summer boyfriends throughout the summer before she goes to Stanford. All her life, Remy has been watching their mother go through five husbands faster than you'd imagine, and the more Remy grows up, the more she realizes that she doesn't--can't--believe in love, because of watching all of these marriages unwind and fall hard, until her mother yet again finds a new man. The only kind of relationship that Remy's ever believed in is the temporary kind, which somehow makes her the tough one of her friends, amongst other reasons. She always assumes that things will end--until she meets Dexter. Just by looking at him Remy knows that he breaks a million of her "Guy Rules": He's in a band, hyper and over-excited, clumsy, the list goes on and on. But the more she bumps into him, the more Remy realizes that she's attracted to Dexter and thus, she becomes his girlfriend.
This book isn't as mushy as you might think it would be. All sorts of different emotions can go through your head at once: You can feel like crying for Remy when she gets invited to her brother, Chris's girlfriend's house, Jennifer Anne, to have dinner with them and something goes terribly wrong, be surprised--almost shocked--shocked--at the way Remy's new step-father, Don, reacts when he's locked out of the house one day, or laugh out loud by Dexter's hysterical comments. All in all, this book will take you to another world that you've never been to before: Remy's world.

This Lullaby- truly WONDERFULL
Have you ever read one of those books that keeps you up all night thinking about it and when you finally do get to sleep you dream about it? If not, THEN WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! It's time for you to experience that feeling by reading 'This Lullaby.'

The narrator, a cynical girl called Remy, tells of her time after she finishes school and before she starts college. In this time she meets a boy, Dexter, who's everything she hates- messy, disorganised, impulsive and worst of all a musician, like her absent father. Remy swore she'd never have anything to do with a musician, after her father wrote her a song, 'This Lullaby', on the day she was born, before dying. She even hates love itself, thanks to her mother's four marriages. But she's finding it difficult to keep on thinking like this with Dexter around...

This modern book is full of love, life worries and traumas. A MUST-READ, especially for teenage girls. One of those amazing books that stick in your mind long after you've finished them...!

Utterly brilliant! :)