Traveling To Teens: Sarah Cross

Traveling To Teens Tours are a way for us bloggers to get the word out about fantastic upcoming novels, that may be a great add to what you are currently reading. You can find out more about this all here.
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Author Bio:
Sarah Cross is a Taurus born in the year of the Monkey. She is four inches taller than Wolverine, but does not have adamantium claws ... yet. Fierce but cute Pallas' cats are her favorite animals--and if you don't think that is relevant, then you really don't know her. She grew up in Ohio and now lives in New York. DULL BOY is her first novel.

Summary:

Sometimes I wish I didn't care what would happen if anyone knew the truth about me. But I do care. I have to keep this - super strength, flying - a secret. No one can know - not my parents, not my friends... It's just that it's getting harder to hide it.

Superpowers are awesome - unless you actually have them, like Avery does. There's only so much he can pass off as "adrenaline" before people start to get suspicious. Probably it's best to lie low, so guys in white lab coats don't come to carry him away, to find out what makes his freakish body tick. Who wants to be vivisected? But flying under the radar becomes a whole lot harder when you can actually fly. It's dangerous to be different, so for now he'll pretend to be normal, unremarkable Avery - a dull boy - anything to keep his secret safe.

What he doesn't expect is the horrifying truth about where his powers came from, who else might have them, and the madness of one villain's plan to turn this superpowered dull boy into something even more powerful and amazing.

Review:I had been really wanting a book with a male narrator lately and not only did I get that from Dull Boy but I got one I really loved. I liked Avery's attitude and he really made me laugh. Avery is also surrounded by friends with all kinds of attitude and humor of their own and that made it a really fun read.

Overall I thought the plot was a little predictable but I had fun reading Dull Boy anyway. The mixture of superpowers and humor kept me interested despite the predictable outcome. What wasn't predictable were the superpowers each kid was given. Cross really used her imagination to give each character a really fun original power and I loved how they reflected their personalities.

Guest Post:
The Songs Superheroes Listen To:

I cannot tell you where I got this very secret information; just know that it was obtained in the most unethical of ways. And that it pays to be nice to butlers. Jarvis & Alfred, this post is for you.

"Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins

Superman could never quite get rid of that little curl in the front of his hair, you know he's still a Top Gun fan. He puts in some good noise-blocking headphones and rocks out to this song while flying Mach 10.

"My Body is a Cage" by Arcade Fire

When Rogue is in the mood to angst about her powers ("Ah can't touch anyone!" <-- note the Southern accent; C what I did thar?), she goes straight for this song. (Dr. Doom has also been known to wear this song out, but he prefers it on vinyl.)

"Never Gonna Give You Up" by Ashley Tisdale

I'm pretty sure The Falcon had never heard this version before it was included on my Sarah + Billings (the hawk) = BFFs music video (no longer available, sorry), but once he did, he was hooked. It is clearly the theme song for superheroes and their falcon sidekicks everywhere.

"Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé

Cyclops always has it bad for someone, whether it's Jean Grey, Emma Frost, or just himself when he's dancing in front of the mirror in the X-bathroom, using Wolverine's hairbrush as a microphone. That's why everyone in the X Mansion has learned to knock first; you don't want to walk in on that dance party. But hey--Cyke sees the world through rose-colored (okay, ruby-quartz-colored) glasses; he thinks he looks supercool.

"Genie in a Bottle" by Christina Aguilera

Jean Grey as the Phoenix: by "you gotta make a big impression; gotta like what you do" she means "show me you're up for destroying some planets, bb." Phoenix is kinda warped. Beast--er, I mean, some random guy who services Jean's iPod and prefers not to be named here--says he tries to delete this from Jean's "I'm the muther@#$%^& Phoenix" playlist as soon as it appears.

"This is Such a Pity" by Weezer

Professor Charles Xavier cranks this while he's doing bicep curls on his Bowflex and lamenting the troublesome relations between humans and mutants. "This is such a pity/We should give all our love to each other/Not this hate that destroys us." Word, Charles. Word.

"What About Love" by Heart

Pretty much every girl Batman has ever dated has dedicated this song to him. Once, the whole Justice League pitched in and bought Bruce an iPod Shuffle with this song, and only this song, preloaded. Rumor has it that he sometimes listens to it in the Batcave while he broods. But that rumor is thus far unsubstantiated.

Songs I Listened to While Writing DULL BOY:

I listen to music nonstop while I write, so I listen to A LOT of different songs. But here are the top 10 tracks I listened to while writing DULL BOY:

#1 - Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas
#2 - Break the Ice by Britney Spears
#3 - Untouched by The Veronicas
#4 - Piece of Me (Remix) by Britney Spears
#5 - Start All Over by Miley Cyrus
#6 - Paralyze by Tila Tequila
#7 - Misery Business by Paramore
#8 - Be Good to Me by Ashley Tisdale
#9 - Damaged by Danity Kane
#10 - Potential Breakup Song by Aly & AJ
#11 - Popular (Live) by Nada Surf

Erika also asked me to unmask a band that secretly has superpowers. I hate to do this to you guys, but I respect Erika too much to bypass the question, so ...

The members of the YA author band, TIGER BEAT (aka Libba Bray, Barnabas Miller, Daniel Ehrenhaft, and Natalie Standiford), have superpowers. Yes. You thought it was amazing that they wrote excellent novels AND could rock out ... but I bet you had no idea they were capable of causing infinite destruction.

I'm so glad they're on our side. Catch a sampling of their rockdom on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGjz0XYEE_Y

Thanks for having me, Erika!! :)

Head over to Traveling To Teens for a Dull Boy giveaway!