This Lullaby

Title: This Lullaby
Author: Sarah Dessen
Published: first published (UK) 2003, by Hodder.
Format: paperback
Pages: 380
RRP: £5.99

rating: * * * * / 5

This is my first book for the Sarah Dessen Challenge that I am taking part in. I've not really read any of Sarah Dessen's books, except for flicking through Just Listen a few years back. So imagine how I felt when I started This Lullaby; completely amazed. Sarah Dessen is a great YA author, like many out there, but she is also so much more. She really writes as though she is Remy (the narrator of This Lullaby). She lets us follow Remy as she realises she's not as clued up about life and all it's heartaches as she first thinks.
Remy Starr, our narrator, thinks she has her life all planned out. Now school is finally out forever, Remy just wants to enjoy her summer before leaving for Stanford College, which is 7,000 miles away. As with every other teenage summer before, Remy is looking for a summer fling. When Dexter stumbles into her life, Remy is totally against being anything more than acquaintances with him, but he's determined to go out with her. As well as being messy and disorganised, Dexter is also a musician like her father (who wrote the famous song This Lullaby for Remy to make up for not staying in contact) which is the worst of all.
Despite all of this, Remy does go out with Dexter, and as she starts to overlook things that normally would've have gotten the guy dumped, Remy starts to question whether she's right or not; is there such a thing as love that lasts more than 6 weeks?
At first, Remy was such a pessimistic cynic I got slightly annoyed by her, but as the book goes on, you grow to love her. She has had a lot to deal with in her life, what with her mother's constant marriages and divorces that Remy has had to organise, that have helped her to think love is a joke. You see how she becomes a much happier person up until THAT moment - I won't spoil it for you.
This book is lighthearted and fun, but it has depth too, which I love. All in all, it was a really good book, and I recommend it for a light summer read. I didn't find it good enough for 5 stars, but it's brilliant all the same.