Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen series

I read both the Christy Miller series and the Sierra Jensen series when I was in junior high and early high school. I read them and re-read them and at 13, Robin Jones Gunn was probably my favorite author. I decided to re-read the first book in each series as an adult and it was such a treat. It was like returning to my adolescence for a moment.

Summer Promise
by Robin Jones Gunn
★★★★
A sweet Wisconsin farm girl, 14-year-old Christy Miller, spends the summer with her wealthy aunt and uncle in California. She struggles with wanting to be accepted by a new group of friends and feeling like she’s not good enough.

She has a crush on Todd, a surfer she met, but is receiving mixed signals from the laid back guy. Her beautiful new friend, Alissa, seems to have it all figured out and Christy wonders if she can emulate Alissa’s style. She quickly realizes that she can’t look to others to determine her self worth.

Only You, Sierra
by Robin Jones Gunn
★★★☆
After spending time on a mission trip in Europe, the free-spirited Sierra returns home to finish high school. The only problem is that home is no longer where she left it. Her entire family moved to Portland, Oregon and now Sierra must adjust to a new town and school.

Her preppy sister is fitting in, as are her younger brothers, but after her time away she can’t seem to find her footing. To top it off, the great guy she met on the plane on the way home seems to be popping up in her new life, but always at the wrong moment.

If I’d read them for the first time now, I’m sure I would have a completely different view. Christy is so innocent and she’s worried about all the silly things most teenagers focus on: making friends, a boy she has a crush on, fitting in, etc. Sierra’s problems also seem small in the big scheme of things. But the thing is, these books aren’t meant for adults, they’re for young teens and for that age, they’re a perfect fit. When you’re young your feelings seem like the most wonderful and awful things in the world. Reading about someone else who is going through the same things is incredibly reassuring. I’d definitely recommend these for anyone hoping to find a good series for young girls.

I Love England aka Sisterchicks Go Brit! review

(Me posing with Ben and my beloved Paddington station)

Sisterchicks Go Brit!
by Robin Jones Gunn
★★★☆

I am an undeniable anglophile. Obviously there are many literary greats that hail from the UK (Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, the Brontës, etc.), but it’s not just the authors that leave me itching to cross the pond. I love the cranky bartenders at the pubs. I love the rolling hills in the countryside. I love the limitless new plays that cycle through the West End. I love double-decker buses, the Tate, cathedrals, day trips to sleepy villages, the Tube, Tower Bridge and posh politeness from strangers.

My Brit love boiled over when I lived in London. Instead of sating my thirst, it only cemented it. The first time I visited England I don’t know if I stopped smiling the whole trip, which probably made it painfully obvious that I was a tourist. I was only 19 and I flew into Heathrow by myself. I visited a friend who was living in London and then we traveled to Bath and Stonehenge for a few days.


I flew over to Ireland and wandered through that country on the same trip. Though I passionately loved the land of Guinness, it wasn’t quite the same devotion I felt for England. Two years later I managed to swing a semester in London, which made it officially my permanent home away from home.

(Me at the British Library and Picadilly Circus)

All of that is to explain why Sisterchicks Go Brit!, a light read from one of my favorite authors when I was a preteen, was so much fun for me. It was a great reminder of all of the above. Gunn’s characters travel to England for the first time and just like me, they are smitten. I felt like I was reading about my own experience in many parts. They did so many of the things that I (and many tourists before me) did. They shopped in Portobello Road, saw Les Miserable, posed with Big Ben, traveled to Oxford to visit the Eagle and the Child pub (where the Inklings hung out!). The book itself isn’t life changing, it’s just a sweet walk down memory lane.

Do you guys have any places that you’re felt drawn to your whole life?

Photos (other than cover) taken of or by moi.