Brand New Memory

Gina Domingo, the teenaged protagonist of this engaging novel, lives in the world of southern California pop culture. Cuban-American by birth, Gina is less a multiculturalist than an omniculturalist, absorbing everything in her path. Like Salinger's Holden Caulfield, or the heroines of Joyce Carol Oates's Foxfire, Gina is possessed of a voice so simpatica -- so engrossing in her perception of herself, her family and friends -- that we find ourselves mesmerized and unable to stop turning the pages.