ALA Booklist

Phoebe lives in Maine with her brother and her father and only hints of her mom, who died when Phoebe was 2. At 13, Phoebe is interested in photography and caring for her goats and sheep and chickens but not much else. When Melita, a cosmopolitan teen who is the child of Phoebe's mother's best friend, comes to stay for the summer, Phoebe is overwhelmed by the girl's sophistication and charm--and by the conflicting feelings she inspires. The girls share a kiss, which awakens many questions in Phoebe but seems less tumultuous for Melita. After Melita returns to New York, Phoebe goes to spend a week with her. The view of the city is a bit off and unreal, and Phoebe sounds too self-aware for a seventh-grader, but readers who need something a bit younger and less intense than Julie Peters' Keeping You a Secret (2003), about a burgeoning lesbian relationship, will find this an absorbing, quirky read.

Horn Book

Maine farm girl Phoebe is intimidated by the visiting Melita, the sophisticated daughter of a friend of her father's, but her feelings soon turn to affection and even physical attraction, although it's not clear if Melita feels the same. Both girls have appealing natures, but the story never comes into focus and is hampered by some unlikely situations and philosophizing.

Kirkus Reviews

A story with feminist and lesbian overtones follows 13-year-old Phoebe, raised on an isolated Maine farm, in her developing friendship with Melita, the 14-year-old daughter of an unstable actress from New York City. Phoebe has no real friends, so when Melita arrives for a visit, Phoebe is apprehensive. Soon, however, she becomes fascinated with Melita's sophistication. She begins to feel a strong attraction to Melita, especially after they practice kissing, and is devastated when she believes Melita rejects her as the two girls later spend time in New York. Jahn-Clough shows insight into Phoebe's developing personality, but other characters seem sketched in, changing their behavior to become instantly reasonable when they realize they've hurt Phoebe. Phoebe's lesbian feelings are not resolved by the end, leaving her simply as a growing girl with more confidence, better able to make friends and join the world. (Fiction. YA)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Jahn-Clough's (<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">On the Hill) protracted tale centers on the friendship between two teens with dissimilar backgrounds. Narrator Phoebe, a friendless 13-year-old who lives on a Maine farm, wears her hair in braids and delights in reading fairy tales to her goat. Melita, a 14-year-old who sports stylish fashions and a purple streak in her hair, arrives from Manhattan to spend the summer on the farm when her mother (a college friend of Phoebe's late mother) enrolls in a clinic after a suicide attempt. The story assumes the sleepy pace of the girls' days: shutterbug Phoebe photographs Melita, Melita shows Phoebe how to apply makeup and they make plans to stage a fashion show in which they'll dress as fairy tale characters and "reidentify them as modern young women." Phoebe's infatuation with her friend takes on a new dimension when Melita teaches her how to kiss on the lips ("Like a fairy tale. I'll be the boy, the prince. You can be the princess"), during which Phoebe reflects, "<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">I'm<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">kissing... <EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC"">I'm kissing Melita. And it was exciting." As she grapples with her confusion surrounding her feelings, Phoebe makes some credible reflections ("Is this what it meant to have a best friend? Were you supposed to want to kiss your best friend?"). She then contends with jealousy when she visits Melita in the city and learns she has a crush on a young French man. The author's descriptions of Phoebe's colliding emotions ring true and the girl's fervent desire to learn more about the mother she never knew adds a poignant note. Ages 10-up.<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC""> (Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 7-9 Two girls thrown together by chance forge an exceptionally close friendship, and one has the courage to admit that for her it is more than platonic. Phoebe has grown up on a farm in Maine. During the summer before eighth grade, Melita, slightly older and worlds more sophisticated, comes to stay. Melita, child of a single, psychologically troubled mother, and Phoebe, child of a widower, are both lonely, although they express it differently. Glamorous Melita entrances shy, literary Phoebe, who likes being behind a camera. Together, they feed one another's imaginations and plan a feminist fashion show. After Melita returns to New York, Phoebe visits her. When she sees that her friend has a crush on a boy, she is forced to come to terms with her own feelings. Her range of emotions and the degree to which they drive her behavior are the most successful elements of the book. While the adolescent dialogue doesn't always ring true and the ending is a bit rushed, the confusion, self-doubt, and self-discovery that Phoebe experiences will be familiar to readers. The lesbian issue is unresolved and relatively low-key, allowing it to be as important or unimportant as readers make it. A shy, unpolished girl in the throes of growing up having something to offer to a fashion maven will be a welcome idea to the many girls for whom glamour and popularity seem as distant as the moon. Faith Brautigam, Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL