Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films and TV shows we’re watching, and the music we’re listening to.

Chris Gordon is reading The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson

The premise of The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson completely threw me. Set in the (not-so-distant) future, Australia is flooded, and the main protagonist, Isobel, is left with her daughter in a survival site at the city’s main sports oval – essentially a refugee camp. Everything you would expect from humanity is happening: violence, confusion, compassion and fear. Resources across the land have been running out for years, and this catastrophic flood was always going to be the end result. The story is horrific, beautifully written and truly the stuff of nightmares.

So my friends, walk over to the nearest Readings shop, buy a copy, decline the bag, catch public transport home, smile at strangers and for God sake, recycle, reuse and re-imagine.

Jackie Tang is reading The Finder by Kate Hendrick

I’ve just finished this lovely young adult novel by Kate Hendrick, in which grungy loner Lindsay is hired by chatty optimistic Elias to track down his birth mother. Lindsay has a reputation for being able to finding lost things – her mother even nicknames her ‘The Finder’. But the reason for her talent has a darker origin: it’s really because she’s constantly searching the faces of the world for that of her missing twin sister, Frankie, who disappeared more than a decade ago and whose existence her parents refuse to talk openly about, even keeping it a secret from Lindsay’s much younger siblings.

Hendrick has created a cast of grounded and authentic characters: Lindsay has just the right level of sass and sarcasm and Elias has a charismatic effervescence. There’s a quiet honesty to the way Hendrick depicts the ripple effect of this family’s trauma and the slow suffocating feeling of avoiding a problem instead of talking through it. I also loved this book for the fantastic platonic friendship between Lindsay and Elias (great to see some YA options with no romance), and the sensitive and realistic depiction of the dynamic between siblings with large age differences.

The Finder does so much right – it’s one of those YA novels where the subject matter and style can be read by younger teens (ages 13+), but the forthright and non-condescending tone would also appeal to older audiences who enjoy quieter coming-of-age stories.

Laura Wilson is reading I Am Out with Lanterns by Emily Gale

High school is full of so many perceptions and perspectives, so it was refreshing to find a book that explores these difference facets so well through the points-of-view of multiple main characters going through year 10. I couldn’t stop reading this exquisitely nuanced book with its beautiful writing, and I wanted to know all the characters’ stories.

Ed. note: Laura is a member of our current Readings Teen Advisory Board.