Departures contains two stories from Robin Jones Gunn’s popular series. Now Boarding at Gate 10 finds Christy Miller after high school graduation, on a family trip to Wisconsin. In the Event of a Water Landing is part of the Sierra Jensen series.

I had never read anything by Gunn and did not realize that these stories were part of a series. Someone who has read the other books would probably like this one. I don’t like to read books out of order, but with some books, you can do that and still have an idea of what’s going on. These two stories are okay as stand-alone stories, but for the most part, I think you should skip this book unless you’re a fan of Gunn’s other books.

Now Boarding at Gate 10 felt as if it were missing too much information. I just didn’t know any of the back-story and I felt like I was playing catch-up through the whole thing. After reading Departures, I looked online and apparently Christy and Todd dated for a few years. Knowing that (and possibly other things I don’t know that I don’t know) would have made the story flow better for me. This is why I really dislike reading books out of order.

I’m trying to remember how weird my friends and I were at 15, because from the perspective of a 35-year-old, I don’t really like Sierra Jensen or her friend Jana. Jana has picked this summer to “grow up” and start dating and Sierra isn’t sure she’s ready for that yet. Which is great. She’s reading her Bible and lecturing her friend… then doing the same things she doesn’t like to see Jana doing. She figures it out in the end, but I didn’t enjoy reading it.

So, I would recommend this for readers of the Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen series. If you’re not already familiar with Gunn’s characters, skip this book until you’re caught up on the others. I’ve added the Christy Miller books to my to-read list, but I think I’ll pass on the Sierra Jensen stories.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. ( )

This was a young adult book that included two longer short stories about two very separate young teenage girls. I have never read a book by this author but I had no problem jumping into either short story. I greatly enjoyed the first one about Christy Miller, but did not enjoy the second story at all. About 70 pages into the second story, all of a sudden the main character, Sierra, starts talking about God & religion & that felt very fake to me. Why did 70 pages pass before the first mention of religion, and all of a sudden Sierra is so religious she's reading her book in the middle of the night? It would have been easy enough to introduce Sierra as a Christian earlier in the short story, but the author didn't. I'm sure regular readers would know this detail, but this just felt very fake & forced to me, especially since the second half of the story regularly introduced religiously elements, like quoting scriptures. ( )

This book had two stories. The first one featured the beloved character, Christy Miller. The second featured Sierra Jensen. I chose this book because I love the comedy and enduring Sisterchicks series. With that being said, the first story lacked the comedy feature so I found it disappointing. Both of the story lines were not bad; however, seeing Gunn's strengths at comedy writing, the first story just lacked "punch."

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. ( )

This was a very cute story. I haven't read any of the Christy Miller or Sierra Jensen books before this. I thought it was going to be a novel but it's really two novellas. The stories were very cute, for the 18 and under age group. I always like books where two stories collide. When you can find characters from a series in the authors new books. It always makes me smile. My favorite of the two stories would have to be the Christy Miller story, Now Boarding at Gate 10. It was very cute. I was hoping there would have been more between Christy and Matt. That's the thing I don't like about novellas, it kind of feels like you get cheated. You don't get a full story. Everything's all smashed together. You get the point but still, I like long novels.Very fast, Very easy read. ( )