SDD Podcast – This Lullaby Chapters 13-18

Adele discusses the remaining chapters of This Lullaby and emails from listeners.

Email – sddiarist@gmail.com

Recommended author – Melina Marchetta
                                  http://www.melinamarchetta.com.au

Listen here

This Lullaby Index

Chapter Reactions
SDD Second Novel Announcement
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Reflection

Random
YouTube Videos
This Lullaby Presentations on YouTube

The Sarah Dessen Diarist Podcast Episodes
This Lullaby Chapters 1-3
This Lullaby Chapters 4-6
This Lullaby Chapters 7-9
This Lullaby Chapters 10-12
This Lullaby Episodes 13-18

This Lullaby Casting
Remy and Dexter
Barbara
John Miller

This Lullaby – Reflection

Again I would like to use this blog as a forum to reflect on a Sarah Dessen novel.  This is an opportunity for you and me to share our observations.  Sarah does drop by the blog on occasion so this is a great way to tell her how much you love her books and characters. You can answer the following questions via email or in the comments section.  I will read them in the final podcast episode for This Lullaby.  Jump in and give your two cents worth.

1. Your favourite character. Why?
2. Your favourite moment.  Why?
3. What is it about This Lullaby that draws you in?
4. If you could ask Sarah Dessen anything about this book, what would it be?

Remember to enter the poll of which SD novel you’d like me to cover next.

This Lullaby – Chapter 18

November.

Summer’s done.

There is no reading between the lines to be done with Barbara’s new novel.  She is starting anew and needs no man to do so.

I thought that the collection of warped photos were a great way to represent the summer.  In the beginning Remy had such a clear vision and yet by the end everything had warped to become clearer and more truthful.  More revealing of what she really needed, which in this case was Dexter.

Truth Squad had made the deal with Rubber Records.  I want one of those stickers desperately.  Turns out they recorded This Lullaby as the second track on their EP and this time the man singing it wasn’t going to let her down.  Dexter amazingly but expectedly was supporting her need to be at college.  Remy isn’t the touring kind but I could see her touching base, as is touched on with his photo note.

They are perfect in their imperfections.  He knows her best and loves her for it.  Isn’t that all we can ask of someone.  Like Louisa May Alcott wrote “…love is the great beautifier” in the best sense possible.

_____________________________________________________

A Note from Adele

I am finished.  Wow.  Who would have thought it was possible a fortnight ago?  Not me.  Anyway I really want to keep riding this wave of activity with the new novel.  Please help me choose which one is next.

Girl Week has wrapped up over at Reviewer X’s site.  Drop by and see all the fantastic reviews, guest blogs and interviews Steph managed to collate over the past week.  Congrats on an awesome job!!

Melissa and Anna over at www.iheartdaily.com introduced me to Poladroid and for that I am forever grateful.

I had an idea, maybe not an especially good one but an idea nevertheless.  Penguin is trying to come up with a title for Sarah’s online community – how about something iconic from this book like Hate Spinnerbait or Truth Squad?  Or is that too much of a Sarah Dessen reader clique thing?  Your thoughts?

This Lullaby – Chapter 17

Remy is searching reception halls for the G Flats aka The Truth Squad, in the hopes of finding Dexter.  Gosh I hope there is an apology coming his way, otherwise I am going to feel ripped off with so little pages left.  I laughed aloud when Ted started gagging during the power ballad.  C’mon that’s funny.  It would have been funnier if they had been doing a cover of a Celine Dion song but it’s funny regardless. 

Chickening out, pressed against the wall, Remy realised that Dexter was telling the truth all along.  He had realised from the beginning that they were meant to be, fated.  The sensation in her arm, his words were the truth. 

Dexter sitting on the kerb just trying to survive the night has no idea that she’s there.  Her approach, clumsy and ill timed seems perfect.  She crashes into him just as he crashed into her life at the beginning of summer. 

“Did you really believe, that first day, that we were meant to be together?” I asked him.

He looked at me and then said, “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Such certainty and faith is to be admired.  I don’t believe I am capable of it but I am glad that he is.  But he makes her take the chance to close the gap, to connect them and her step forward pays off.

There’s not much more to say than – sigh.

This Lullaby – Chapter 16

So Patty and Don had been having an affair behind her husband’s back.  Don wanted Patty to himself but she refused to leave her husband so he married Barbara.  This marriage acted as a catalyst for Patty to leave her husband and resume her affair with Don but this time behind Barbara’s back.  These people needed to communicate instead of engaging in tawdry sex and taking lewd photos.  This is horribly unfair on both Barbara and the unnamed husband of Patty.  Infidelity is a messy, horrible business that tarnishes all.  I have always been of the opinion that wanting to stray is an indication that you have timed out of your current one.  It’s just so hurtful.

I really enjoyed the timing of the matter.  That Jennifer Anne and Chris announce their engagement on the cusp of his mother telling them of her nasty news.  It bought some much needed levity to the situation.  The cuts between the different news being relayed was charming and Barbara’s decision to push her sadness aside to find joy in her son’s happiness was very admirable.  Barbara is being a bigger person, a person she’s never had to be before and it suits her.

I love that Remy had some helpful hints for Jennifer Anne in the wedding planning department and that Barbara wanted to help them too.  This is the person that allowed her daughter to plan the majority of her nuptials.  It shows enormous growth for a character we don’t see too much of in this novel. 

I love that Lissa got her moment.  She manned up and finally asked her KaBoom co-worker, PJ, out only to discover that it wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be.  How empowering.  I so badly want a happy ending for this girl but I suspect that finding her inner strength is her happy ending.  Maybe that’s not as splashy as a passionate kiss in the rain but it’s still pretty amazing.  I cannot believe that Lissa is the one to call Remy on her crap.

“Remy, as long as I have known you, you always thought you had it all figured out.  And then something happened this summer that made you wonder if you were right after all.  I think you always believed in love, deep down.”

I think that it is fantastic that of her three friends, Lissa is the one to bring the truth home and to have the gumption to say it.  Bravo Lissa.

Maybe all the boys were her way of searching for love.  To find the guy that would restore her faith, the faith that was robbed from her by a man she never met, who wrote her such a memorable song.

I like her girlfriends calling her out on her incorrect assumptions about Dexter’s role in the photo debacle.  I cannot believe she needed this pointed out to her.  She is a supremely intelligent individual and this was a completely ridiculous jump on her behalf.  Good work from her friends in pointing out the stupidity of her accusations against Dexter.

I love the pegging of Don’s car with Zip Coke’s.  He deserved worse but why waste a good arm?

This Lullaby – Chapter 15

Remy’s co-workers are so unbelievably sweet.  Giving her five hundred dollars is so generous and so unnecessary but a way for them to express their love for her.   I love that they want her to spend it on incidentals rather than text books – now that is a gift that is fun!  And more importantly it represented their best wishes for her future success.

I loved that sensation when I was just about to leave for college.  The packing, the preparation, the sense that everything was about to change…permanently.  Then the fears started – what was Mum going to do with my room, would home feel like home when I returned, would people forget me?  Remy is going through the same emotions but with the plus side of attending a kick ass university.  Stanford.  Isn’t that where Ryan from The OC went?  (Proof that American television is ruining me.)  “The Remy That Had Been”.  The truth is, you are never again the same person you were in high school.  Not only do your surrounds, home and friends change but so do you.

“Just because my father had left me a legacy of the expectation that men would let me down didn’t mean I had to accept it.” 

How’s that for some ground breaking self realisation?  I feel so proud of her, which is bizarre because she is fictional.  But then she really isn’t as Sarah has crafted a character that feels real, speaks real and acts real.  Remy is real and it’s because of this that This Lullaby is many reader’s favourite Dessen novel.  I get it now.

Fueled by champagne, Remy decides to brave Flash Camera and talk to the recently returned Dexter.  Dexter’s report of the DC Rubber Record meeting was what I expected, Ted throwing a hissy fit.  Why don’t they replace him already?  He’s snarky, difficult and stubborn – just like Remy!   Except – not hot.

I find it very confronting that Dexter assumed she was five days away from falling completely and irrevocably in love with him.  If someone said that to me, my immediate reaction would be to deny.  As was Remys.  I would probably run out immediately after denying it, no one would be brave enough to admit to it.  He had to know her well enough to know that she would run.  Was it a deliberate attempt to keep her guessing or just a mismanaged move?   Turns out it was a joke or the truth cloaked in a joked.  My guess is the former.

Dexter brings out the soon-to-be new additions to the photo wall.  Unfortunately one ends up being Patty posed in a very sexual manner in front of the ugly tapestry in her mother’s room.  Either Don’s cheating on Barbara in his wife’s bedroom or Barbara’s being experimental.  I think Don’s proved to be an ass already so the cheating isn’t a stretch.  He had the gall to bring this woman to the place where he resides with his wife and her children is surprisingly bold though.  Or stupid.

I do not for one second think that the appearance of this photo was an act of revenge.  I do not understand how Remy can believe that either.  We all know Dexter well enough by this point to know that the thought would never occur to him.  I guess anger blinded her ability to reason.

Remy gets home to find that Barbara has been sent the same photo .  A crappy move from Patty for sure.  I love Barbara’s mentioned that  –

“I missed him.  All those Ensures, and not one made contact.  I have terrible aim…Even one would have made it better.  Somehow.”

I wish she’d hit him with every single one.  They have been married for less than one summer and he’s cheating on her.  From what we saw at the barbeque, I am assuming this is a long term affair.  Poor Barbara.  All this puts Remy straight into damage control mode and no teenager should know so clearly what to do in this situation.  She really is too old for her years.  I love that Barbara finally realised this too, deciding it is her time to take charge.  To take responsibility.  To be the mother.

And it scared her to know that she may not be needed.  To be free was not necessarily what she wanted anymore.

“…I felt strangely alone, as if everything fell away suddenly, leaving me with only the sound of my heart beating.  It scared me.”

Her mother had finally grown up.

_________________________________________________________

A Note from Adele

I bought my teenage step-sister her Christmas present today.  A copy of Just Listen.  I am hoping that once she gets over the disappointment of receiving a book as a gift she will enjoy Sarah’s words as much as I have.  Weirdly it felt like an oddly personal gift, I wonder why?

I have discovered a show called Kyle XY and hence the last few days have been entry-light.  I think I am in love with Matt Dallas.

Remember to vote for which book I cover next – three chapters to go.

Submit questions you have for Sarah (should I get an interview) to me via my email at the top left corner of the page.

This Lullaby – Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Two reviews in the past few days and suddenly there is hardly any pages left in the book.  You can usually count on Sarah’s last few chapters being of the short persuasion, which is great as a blogger and both thrilling and depressing at a reader. 

Trey’s car sounds like an ocean liner, absolutely too big and too luxurious.  I want one.  Now.  I would be too afraid to drink or eat in it though.  My spatial lack of awareness is becoming legendary in my city.  There is no wall or crack I won’t bump into or fall over.  I am an equal opportunity klutz and that applies to Range Rovers too.

I love that Remy can find fault in perfection.  That this guy, who is courteous, shells out money like he has mob affiliations and attends college, could still be deemed a yawn fest. 

“He was … Perfect Paul, the Ideal Boyfriend Exhibit A”.

Yep she’s bored out of her freaking mind.  Bring back Dex!

There had to be another unfortunate meeting between Dexter and Remy.  Meeting in front of the Quik Zip seemed like she was deliberately being a wench, despite it being coincidental.  Window tinting has never been so appreciated in its entire existence.  I love that the boys are three sheets to the wind though, drunk can be funny when needs be.  (Unlike Ruby and her puking.) Ted has no sense of humour and that’s beginning to bug me.  It makes sense though, in a group of friends there is usually the overly grounded, party pooper.  The photo shoot was just plain entertaining, I could picture it clearly in my mind.

“The fair Remy did not see me as a worthwhile risk.”

She really didn’t.  She couldn’t risk her heart over him and knowing her history I understand.  So should he.  Do you think he understood?  Maybe too clearly. 

The coke debacle was humiliating and really highlighted how well he knows her.  He doesn’t sweat the small stuff, he might be dying inside but no one would know it.  Dexter’s not afraid of his feelings for her.  Paul was remarkably relaxed about the whole thing, maybe he sees Remy as a place holder until college starts up too.

Maybe Dexter isn’t fine with it.  I love cranky, drunk Dexter with his accusatory, wobbly finger.  I love that he called her on her BS.  That the friendship approach was just a ruse and he cannot believe she thought he was genuine.  I love that he hates Trey’s Spinnerbait sticker on his car.  I love that he’s raising his voice.  Dexter can get riled up.  Maybe this is what she brings to him?  Passion.  Directness.

His comment that every word from the beginning was true confused me too.  There was so much silliness in that period, how much truth could there really be?  Did that first day count?  Were his grand claims of their destiny a pick up line or his certainty in their future?  Either way, you cannot blame Remy for being uncertain here.

Barbara seems to be catching on that her marriage isn’t going all that well.  Self-awareness never hurt anyone.

The band is officially meeting with Rubber Records.  I can’t see this going well with all those personalities coming to an agreement.

The girls running through the tawdry history of Remy’s love life was a fun listen for me.  But being Remy in that situation wasn’t fun at all.  It really highlighted that she’s alone despite dating all these guys.  It showed how superficial and shallow she can be.  How she makes it easy to not connect with people.  And that Dexter brought her out of that long time funk.  Kicking and screaming – but out into the light.

It made Remy sound like a tramp, a perception I shared at the beginning of this book.  What a long way I have come.  Her exhaustion at initiating another break up was really telling to me.  She’s had enough of Old Remy.  Old Remy couldn’t deal with Dexter in her life but maybe New Remy can.

This Lullaby – Chapter 13

In attempt to catch up on months of neglect here’s my bullet point summary of Chapter 13.

• There is no way on Earth I would allow someone called Talinga to cut my hair.  Never going to happen.
• Hairdressers shouldn’t play matchmaker.  Mine tried once.  Never again.  Why do they think that because they know your hair, they know who’s right for you?
• Paul’s too normal.
• Meeting Dexter whilst on date – awkward!
• Exes don’t discuss maybes, good try Dex.
• Defective cameras – wanna bet this becomes a story point somewhere along the line bringing some great clarity to Remy’s life.
• Don bellows at her mum – ditch him, Barbara!

Okay I can’t dot point her discussion with her mother about the past marriages.  I like that Barbara shares her view point that a string of failed relationships is better than having been alone all that time.  I don’t know if I agree but I can see where she is coming from.  I don’t however, see how she can classify Don as being nice to her.  Bellowing doesn’t equal nice.

• Paul is still too nice.
• I love that Lissa talks positively about both Dexter and Paul.  She truly sees the best in people, or is that just boys?
• It’s nice to see Remy doing a favour for Lucas despite not being with Dexter anymore.  I like that she was inordinately interested in events at the little yellow house and of the band.  She’s not moving on.
• Barbara’s atypical conclusion to her romance novel has Remy wondering if she’s preaching to settle.  Is that what Barbara has chosen to do with Don?  I suspect that she has.

____________________________________________________

A Note from Adele

Check out www.iheartdaily.com from some girly goodness.

I will try and get a podcast out asap.  I promised last time and made a liar of myself, so I will just say I will try this time.

I have not asked Sarah if she would be willing to do an interview regarding This Lullaby as yet.  I will enquire soon, perhaps after Christmas.  Should you have anything you are curious about please email me at sddiarist@gmail.com.

This Lullaby – Chapter 12

I have pushed aside the many reports I need to edit to give my take on chapter 12 of this great novel (which isn’t getting the greatest service from yours truly.)

Lissa’s new job doesn’t sound great. Having known a friend of mine that worked for Red Bull as a salesperson, I know that it can also be an extremely fun way to get paid. That being said, he also drank fourteen of those things a day. Warning – not recommended in any shape or form. People with that much caffeine and taurine in their systems are an accident waiting to happen. Red Bull does sound like it tastes better than KaBoom though. But then many people get addicted and/or fond of beverages that don’t initially taste nice e.g. beer, red wine, coffee. Sales suck. I never want to have to work in sales again, the teen years were sufficient to last me a lifetime. I do feel bad for Lissa though, her boyfriend broke up with her and she has a dubious job. Her karma must stink.

Don Davis’s Toyotafaire sounds like it would be hell. The general public, balloons and salespeople all milling around in an area filled with Land Cruisers. At least it’s a way that Remy can come across Dexter again, his band having to play cover songs. I hope Ted suffers hard and plenty.

Don’s integration into Remy’s family life seems to be quite bumpy. I am always incredulous, when seeing people I know really well, appear to be blissfully ignorant of behaviour their partners exhibit that would typically set them off. Love can have a blinding effect on people.

I love the idea of the beaded curtain. I am reminded of the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz but with a crazy eccentric, romance writer instead of a moustache twirling, balloon loving man. I find the numbing effects of love to be curious. I am a little jealous but mainly I am puzzled that someone else can possess the ability to remove staunch pet peeves and make them irrelevant to you. I need someone to promptly enable me to not freak out when people leave dishes IN the sink. Dream man, where are you and your sink calming powers?

Going crazy over an author? That is a completely foreign concept to me (wink, wink.) Would I ever gush like the bum-bag wearer did over Barbara? I would like to say no but then I have never been lucky enough to meet any of the authors that have inspired me. That’s mainly due to them being dead or in America. Sigh. Here’s where I should buy a ticket to the US to meet one of the stops for Sarah’s book tour in 2009 or start heavy campaigning for Sarah to drop Down Under. I can see myself gushing over characters and their interactions with one another. I tend to feel passionately about most characters, Jane Austen is lucky I cannot grill her about Lizzie.

“So I’m thinking…that we need to be friends” this from a guy that left town each of the times his previous flings have ended? Exes as friends are rarely successful. Case and point – my really good friend is still friends with her ex and everyone I know finds that peculiar because it just doesn’t happen. They are the exception and thus should be stared at with amazement. Exes just aren’t meant to be friends. Dexter is obviously trying the friend angle to re-establish their relationship. Will Remy see through it? She’s logical and her many points about it being possible to be friends were extremely valid in my mind. Yet Dexter found her weakness, appealing to her need to win a challenge, to be the best. He had her pegged and she hadn’t even realised. She surely has met her match.

Of course there would be rules. This is Remy we are talking about. Her need to control and compartmentalise areas of her life, made the rules a prerequisite. No touching – necessary if there isn’t to be any hanky panky. Acknowledgment of awkwardness – necessary but definitely a harder rule to enforce. I would definitely be mocking the concept that friendship is possible. Put me alongside Chloe and Lissa, I would have been the one voicing vehemently negative opinions the loudest. I am such a cynic.

Chloe has begun warming up on me. The fact that she shamed Remy into going out with the college guy was great strategising and very Dexter-like when you think about it. I loved that she inadvertently stumbled across the fact that Remy had driven past Dexter’s house, reminiscent of Lissa’s coping mechanisms. Remy’s decision to go on the date as a means to protect her flaking reputation is interesting too. She’s not trying to convince herself that it could be something, more a means to an end. Dexter’s end, the end to her summer and an end to her time at home.

Her date, Evan, has greasy hair. That’s a deal breaker for me. Unless you are Tim Riggins, Dillon USA. Chloe had picked the boys up at Wal-Mart while purchasing trash bags, I wonder if the irony was completely lost on her? The boys are geeks and I got uncomfortable at the unflattering representation of them and their topic of conversations. These are my people. I am a geek, I talk to geeks but I can talk non-geek unlike many of my brethren. Geeks rule – but this group may not. Although the unwashed hair is now perfectly understandable.

Don’s rage was spectacularly inappropriate. I understand that getting locked out is horrible but the temper he displayed was overshooting what was a reasonable reaction. He clearly has no understanding of teenagers and their somewhat unreliable use of cell phones. For instance, my baby brother refuses to answer his if any family member’s number is displayed. Not because he doesn’t love us, more than he appreciates time with his friends unhampered by family. Sure this is annoying but if it is very necessary to speak with him, we just call his BF.

When it further revealed that they have waited under a hour and that Christopher has also been difficult to get in contact with, I am angered. Don and his stubby finger need an immediate chill pill. I nearly cheered when Remy stood up to him and defended both herself and her mother. Don had no business speaking to either of them in that fashion. Step-fathers should be on their best behaviour in terms of accusatory language and he wasn’t. Especially as if was his own fault he didn’t have his keys. The surge of protectiveness that Remy felt for her mother is nothing new for me. I wouldn’t consider myself to be brave but if anyone is disrespectful or threatening to my siblings or mother – I am a tigress. Considering Don’s words, I think Remy did well to be that controlled with her response to him.

I felt for Lissa, I really did. I have been in situations where I have been present for someone else’s family issue and it’s the most uncomfortable experience ever. I think of all of Remy’s friends, Don’s rage would have intimidated Lissa the most. Hence the shrinking.

Barbara is in a harder position than Lissa. She too was locked out and had to experience a hour of Don’s voiced frustrations and anger towards her children. I ask – where were her keys? She was between a rock and a hard place, her new husband and her children. He spoke to her in a demeaning manner in front of her daughter and that must have been humiliating. To have your own daughter defend you would just make this mortification worse. Yet, she didn’t acknowledge Remy at the end of the night. Was this her own humiliation or shame for her daughter?

“Love is an excuse to put up with shit that you shouldn’t. That’s how it gets you. It throws off the scales so that things that should weigh heavily don’t seem to. It’s a crock. A trap.”   Wow, sounds like one of my earlier paragraphs huh? Dexter’s got an uphill battle here. Remy’s mother, who  taught Remy all about being strong has been wiped out by love. Remy will be rebelling even more from the emotion now.

Remy didn’t sleep with Dexter and this confirms to her friends that she really felt for him. I understand the thinking but it always seems a little like a standby mechanism for the reformed slut. Not that Remy has ever been depicted as such by herself or her friends but regardless, her not sleeping with Dexter had meaning. The description of Dexter as someone Remy “could fall in love with” is a bit of an eye opener. It’s the ‘could’ that scares her, she’s let him in already. He’s half way there. I like that Dexter was the one resisting the physical intimacy of their relationship but I do wonder why. Also, how does a boy resist a clearly responsive girl that he’s head over heels for?

Remy’s discussion with Chris is an important one. It highlights to her that falling in love may not be a decision to be made. More than not it happens without you been conscious of it. If that is the case she cannot control it, can she? That may be the scariest element of love for her.