Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2002 (Vol. 70, No. 8))
Not every high-school senior gets to plan her mother's fifth wedding the week after graduation, but then, not everybody has a mother who is a famous romance novelist either. Remy is not the average grad heading off to college at Stanford; she's perfectly organized, neat, tidy, on time, and boy-smart, having learned from her mother's experiences that commitments are too risky to take. This summer will be her usual: a receptionist job at Jolie Salon, nightly gatherings with her three girlfriends at the Quik Zip and music clubs, and a temp boyfriend, no strings attached. Mom's #5 is the owner of Don Davis Motors whom she met when she went to buy a new car. Ironically, it was in Don's showroom that Remy met Dexter, the antithesis of her usual guy: clumsy, messy, impetuous, and persistent, but, worst of all, a musician. Despite her own rules about boys, Remy finds herself drawn to Dexter, but her feelings and trust in him crumble when his band, Truth Squad, plays "This Lullaby"-her song, emotional crutch, and the only gift from the father she never knew. Written for her by her hippie, songwriter father, Husband #1, when he disappeared from her life, the now-famous song echoes the sentiment that he-and men-will always let you down. As her mom's latest marriage dissolves in a puddle of deceit, bad cliches, and cans of Ensure, Remy caves in to her own subverted emotions. 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. 2002, Viking, $16.99. Category: Fiction. Ages 13 up. © 2002 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Claire Rosser (KLIATT Review, May 2002 (Vol. 36, No. 3))
It's Remy's last summer at home, where she and her brother have always been close to their mother, a successful writer of romance novels, who is now in her fourth marriage. Because of the endless failures of love Remy has witnessed, including her own first sexual encounters in high school, she feels she has no illusions about love. The lullaby of the title is a song written by her father, who never was able to love his children, but a song that Remy returns to again and again. Lines in the song say, "even if I let you down/this lullaby plays on." So this is the story of how Remy comes to understand that love, even flawed love, is worth experiencing; that she would rather open herself to life and love than to be so self-protective as to deny herself the experience. Oddly enough, it is her mother, even in the midst of a failing new marriage, who helps her to understand this truth. She also learns about loving from meeting Dexter, a musician who makes her laugh and loosen up a bit. Their relationship defies all the rules Remy usually follows to maintain control of her feelings. And she doesn't sleep with him either, even though that is usually her pattern. Their stumbling, bumbling love affair hardly gets going in the first weeks of summer, as both of them are working hard, busy with friends, planning on futures--Remy at Stanford; Dexter dreaming of his band signing a contract with a music company. Remy knows on some level that her feelings for Dexter are different and that she is in danger of falling in love with him. So she tries to keep the relationship contained to avoid hurt, even breaking up with him to pursue a "safer" situation with another guy--safer in the sense she can enjoy his company and know it won't hurt when they leave each other. With Dexter, she isn't so sure, which is why readers will appreciate the final chapter that takes place in November when Remy is at Stanford and Dexter sends her a package that reveals where their relationship is heading. What is good about this book is the humor mixed with reality, with the honest portrayal of smart, articulate teenagers struggling to make sense of a world of nonsensical expectations. Remy, Dexter and their friends and "families" are exasperating, funny, smart, and quite interesting. Category: Hardcover Fiction. KLIATT Codes: JS*--Exceptional book, recommended for junior and senior high school students. 2002, Penguin Putnam/Viking, 330p., $16.99. Ages 12 to 18.

Deborah Stevenson (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May 2002 (Vol. 55, No. 9))
Remy’s always cool, always in control, never the sucker for love that her five-times-married mother is, and she doesn’t plan on changing her ways the summer before her long-awaited departure for college. Then she meets Dexter, a goofy, untidy, and lovestruck musician who manages to sneak behind her defenses (“I leaned forward and kissed Dexter, making a choice that would change everything”), but the self-contained habits of a lifetime may prove too hard for Remy to break. As the plot suggests, this is at its heart a classic romance, with the beautiful cynic finally learning the importance of risk and beginning to trust when she finds the right man, and Dessen plays the dynamics of the traditional story effectively. Unfortunately, she also clutters it up considerably, slowing the novel down to a sluggish pace with talky overexposition, superfluous material (Remy’s close friends never become more than ciphers, so their scenes just bog the tempo down), and too-frequent discussion of Remy’s self-protective nature. Readers prepared to wade through the extraneous trappings may nonetheless relish the good old-fashioned love story at this title’s core. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2002, The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2002, Viking, 356p, $16.99. Grades 7-12.

Donna Bode (The Lorgnette - Heart of Texas Reviews (Vol. 15, No. 4))
Remy just graduated from high school and is in charge of her life. She works as a receptionist at a local salon and is planning the fifth wedding of her mother. Remy is very organized and on time with everything she does. She has plans to go to college, and when she feels that a boyfriend is getting too serious, she breaks up with him. Her father was a musician and wrote a song just for her entitled "This Lullaby," which had the line "I will let you down." He did let her down, and her boyfriend has cheated on her; therefore, when she met Dexter, he was everything she hated. The last thing that Remy intended to do was get involved with a musician like her father. But Remy is drawn to Dexter, breaking all of her rules. When her mother's marriage fails again and Dexter disappoints Remy, Remy and Dexter decide to just be friends. The ending is not a storybook ending, but readers will keep turning pages until the end. Fiction. Grades 9 and up. 2002, Viking, 345p, $16.99. Ages 14 up.

Amy S. Pattee (VOYA, June 2002 (Vol. 25, No. 2))
Although eighteen-year-old Remy's father left her mother before she was born and died soon after he went away, his ghost haunts Remy in the form of a hit song he wrote, "This Lullaby." Penned in honor of her birth, the ballad becomes a schmaltzy hit played on lite-rock radio and during father $ND daughter dances at weddings. Remy hates the song and the intimacy it implies; to the obsessively organized Remy, intimacy is something to be avoided. As Remy plans her mother's fifth wedding, she anticipates her freshman year at Stanford where she can finally enjoy the distance she craves. When Remy meets Dexter, lead singer of a traveling rock band, the depth of their relationship threatens to disrupt her strategy for a no-strings summer before her escape to California. As Dessen's body of work expands, her novels deepen. With its deceptively simple summer romance plot, this book documents adolescent life with perception and acuity. Remy, her family, and friends are unique and fully realized characters with complementing story lines. Not one for typecasting, Dessen creates characters with unapologetic faults and no moralizing. Remy and her friends, like many teenagers, occasionally drink, smoke, and ponder sex; however, these activities and musings are not fodder for narrative sermonizing. The decisions the teens make--although real--do not carry with them the obvious repercussions present in a more cautionary tale. With Dessen's sympathy, accuracy, and genuine respect for her characters and readers, this novel is sure to become another favorite of high school readers. VOYA CODES: 5Q 5P J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Every YA (who reads) was dying to read it yesterday; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2002, Viking, 352p, $16.99. Ages 12 to 18.