Call Me Cathy (Real Life ): Call Me Cathy

A high school senior whose family moved to Brooklyn from Hong Kong only seven years ago, An-ying is wedged uncomfortably between two worlds: ""When I'm with my friends, I'm an American who happened to be born in China. But to my parents, I'm a Chinese girl who just happens to live in America."" She hopes to win a scholarship to attend business school in Philadelphia and eventually open her own boutique, but her overprotective parents envision a different future. While they plot (along with An-ying's aunt) to introduce her to Chinese boys, An-ying finds herself increasingly attracted to an American guy she has met at a party that her parents had no idea she was attending. At the same time she learns that her older brother, missing for a few days, is the target of a Chinatown gang and is strung out on alcohol and pills. A brief outline of this formulaic-sounding plot doesn't do it justice: Meacham's characters-especially An-ying-are lifelike and sympathetic, and the scenario she depicts indeed seems a slice of real life. Ages 12-up. (Jan.)