I don't even know how to put my thoughts into words about this one— it was one of the most tender, powerful and emotionally heavy books I've read. I couldn't give this any less than five stars and I'd recommend it to everyone, just take note of the content/trigger warnings.

This was such a raw look at trauma, grief, recovery and self love. I can see how this will resonate with a lot of readers and even though I couldn't relate to some of what Sara was going through, with Paradise's amazing writing, I still found it easy to empathise with her all the way and just wanted the best for her. I loved the occasional switches of perspective between Sara & Miles, getting to see the man's POV in certain scenes was interesting but also making sure this story was Sara's alone instead of focusing on the male counterpart more than what's necessary.

The writing in this was beautiful, almost lyrical. Right from the first few lines, I was gripped and knew this was going to be a special book. The further in we get, the heavier the plot becomes which I hadn't fully expected and there were plenty moments I had to take a breath before carrying on, but I think the rawness is what makes this book what it is. It doesn't hold back and I think that's important for the context of the story.

I'm in awe at this being Paradise's debut, I can't wait to see what else she does in the future. If you liked Gold Rush by Olivia Petter & Normal People by Sally Rooney, this is one to get on your radar.

Thank you to the publishers & Netgalley for my free eARC!

An intense read on how to live with C-PTSD, how to understand and reclaim your body, how to navigate new relationships and the baggage the other person brings with them. It's raw, bittersweet and ultimately hopeful.

A very strong debut that I would definitely recommend (TW include: SA, child abuse, mental illness).

This was a difficult book to finish. Sara has severe phobias which are really impacting her life. As the book progresses, they are explained and it is clear she has PTSD; however, by this point I had become quite frustrated with her.

Delicately revealed, Sara really is picking her way through life and struggling deeply. Her relationships with to everyone around her are fractured by her ‘frozen’ nature. Miles, her boyfriend, is so respectful and patient with her but it is hard to imagine any longevity in their relationship.

Sara suffers with vaginismus - which means she is unable to use a tampon or have any type of penetration, which impacts her life. I have sympathy for her situation, and I suspect her feelings are deeply felt and beautifully portrayed; however, never having (luckily!) any experience of these symptoms, I became increasingly frustrated with her character. Sara doesn’t really drink (very controlled), she is vegan - vehemently- so those around her eating meat (Miles) repulses her, she lacks any sense of joy or escapism and has crippling anxiety attacks.

Sara seems to want to live rather than exist, but progress is sloww. I know I sound harsh as I do feel sorry for her, but as a read this was very hard with no reward. Not one for me!

Wow. Wow. Wow. I devoured this. Overspill is messy, intimate, feverish, like wading chest-deep into someone else’s grief and girlhood and not quite knowing how to get back out. Charlotte Paradise’s writing is sharp and slippery, almost dreamlike at times, but it cuts deep.

It’s full of decay and longing and the kind of female obsession that feels both dangerous and tender. The atmosphere is so thick you can almost taste it — waterlogged, sticky, impossible to shake off. I found myself rereading entire passages just to sit with them a little longer.

I genuinely can’t believe this is a debut. It’s so self-assured, so precise in its strangeness, like it knows exactly what it’s doing, and it does. This reminded me of everything I love about weird, visceral, poetic fiction. It left me feeling undone in the best way. One of those books I’ll be thinking about for a long time.

Not an easy book to read.

A beautifully written and heartbreaking novel. Paradise’s style of writing is excellent and incredibly moving. I felt such empathy for both Sara and Miles as they try to navigate their relationship.

At times dark, brutal and upsetting, Overspill is an intensely honesty and claustrophobic novel. A challenging and excellent read but I’d hesitate to recommend due to the content.

Thanks to HQ | Akan Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

A debut novel that touches raw emotions. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to ARC this book.

An excellent debut. It seemingly got more emotionally challenging as the chapters went on; I couldn’t help but feel for both Sara and Miles. The prose was gorgeous. A really moving book.

First of all, I would just like to thank NetGalley, Charlotte Paradise and HQ for an ARC of “Overspill” in exchange for an honest review.

A raw and unfiltered debut, exploring the complexities of the mind when processing past trauma, and how it can impact you for the rest of your life.

I cried so many times whilst reading this book that it almost became routine. I related to Sara so much in so many different ways, and my heart broke for her every time the story progressed and a new aspect of her trauma was revealed.

The lyrical prose and the frank way the novel is written add so much to the story- I think it was an ingenious choice on the author’s part. Even the fact that it’s written in third person helps to elevate Sara’s sense of detachment.

It’s hard because I honestly think it’s best to go into this one blind- but I can acknowledge that’s not really possible because of the number of trigger warnings this book deals with. So please, do check them before delving into this one- I did find parts to be very triggering and I would hate for you to be blindsided.

Honestly, I wish everyone could read this book. It’s eye-opening and heartbreaking in a way that can only be understood if you experience it with the characters on the page. A number of lessons in patience and comprehension lie within these pages, and I think that’s invaluable.

A brilliant book that I will be thinking about for a long time to come. I’m not sure I’ve ever related to a character more in my life- and Sara will hold a special place in my heart. Highly, highly recommend.

Overspill by Charlotte Paradise follows Sara as she falls into a relationship with Miles. While it may sound like 1 + 1 = 2, Sara deals with intense feelings towards intimacy and physicality and Miles grapples with his own matters.

This wasn’t an easy book to read by any stretch of the imagination and I felt heartbroken from the first scene. I do think it was beautifully written, with a tenderness, reality and darkness that I didn’t expect.

For this to be a debut is a quite incredible, the book is like a strong whisper, tenderly rendered but clear in its execution.

Thank you NetGalley for the eArc of Overspill!

Wow. Where to start with this one...

Overspill, is one of them once in a while books that beautifully encapsulates a lot of feelings and experiences that are hard to put into words. This is a tender exploration of coming to terms of your own healing after experiencing unforgiving trauma.

I feel like each character has their place within this story and highlights the importance of having the right people by your side when taking the challenging steps into healing.

A stunning debut novel, Charlotte Paradise is absolutely one to keep an eye out for and has immediately been added onto my auto-buy list.

This is a startlingly honest read. It's much more deeply layered than I was expecting, and readers must be aware that there is a lot of potentially triggering content in the book. With that said, the story is told in such a beautiful way, so reflective and jarringly open and sad and hopeful all mixed together. I rooted so much for Sara and really felt like she was someone I almost knew personally while I was reading. A book you won't forget.

I enjoyed this book! I think the way the author approachd intimacy and love was really interesting, buttt i do think it dragged a bit in the middle

Overspill is a rather mundane day to day story where you follow main character Sara as she navigates life through ups and downs as well as trying to come to terms with her fears of sexual intimacy.

I did think I'd love this book, but it didn't end up being what I thought it would, which was a shame.

Overspill follows Sara who is living with trauma that even she’s not sure where it stems from. All she knows is that she can’t put a tampon in and the thought of physical intimacy terrifies her.

When she meets Miles she’s forced to confront her fears and unravel what really happened in her past.

I was expecting a Sally Rooney-esque no real plot just vibes love story, but Overspill was much darker than that. It explores sexual trauma in a claustrophobic and uncomfortable way, and i’m not someone who is usually triggered by this sort of thing but even I struggled to get through it in parts.

It’s incredibly well written and takes you completely inside Sara’s head and although I guessed where the plot was going it didn’t make it any less devastating. It was heartbreaking and hard to read but nevertheless a very important book.

Overspill is a stunning and emotionally charged read that’s equal parts heartbreaking and beautiful. Charlotte Paradise crafts a world that feels vivid and raw, capturing the feeling of being overwhelmed—by emotions, relationships, and the weight of everything that’s outside our control.

The story follows [insert protagonist’s name if you'd like], who is dealing with the fallout of an emotionally charged situation, and Paradise’s writing makes you feel every ounce of that tension. The characters are so real and messy, which is exactly what makes them so compelling. I found myself really connecting with them, even in their worst moments. The complexity of their emotions—anger, fear, guilt, and hope—are portrayed in such a relatable and raw way.

What really stood out to me was the pacing. It's slow, but in the best way. Paradise takes her time in unfolding the story, allowing the characters' journeys to feel earned and their emotional growth to land with impact. The themes of isolation, self-discovery, and the way our lives spill into each other are explored in such an insightful, almost poetic way.

This book is a quiet, thoughtful kind of drama. It doesn’t hit you with big twists or constant action, but the emotional payoff is huge. If you like character-driven stories that explore deep personal growth and the messiness of human connection, Overspill is absolutely worth checking out.

The premise of this really appealed to me but the execution of it fell slightly short for me, which was a shame.

The novel follows Sara, who is 25 and struggling with vaginismus and sexual trauma. We start the novel with Sara struggling to put a tampon in, which sets the tone for the rest of the novel although only scratches the surface for what comes later. She hasn't dated anyone for a long time and is embarking on a date/relationship with Miles. Miles is empathetic and eager to respect Sara's boundaries and Sara struggles with the tension between desiring Miles physically yet needing to assert and protect her boundaries.

I found parts of this hard to connect to and the characters a little hard to connect to at times. Whilst I felt for Sara, I didn't really feel emotionally connected to her story until the final third of the novel and as the novel is such an intense read, I really missed feeling that connection to her. I didn't ever warm to Miles as a character. He was set up as this really great, amazing guy who was going above and beyond for her when in reality his only achievement was not forcing or pressuring her to do anything she didn't want to do. I found the scenes with him in quite irritating and I think that definitely impacted my overall enjoyment. I really enjoyed the scenes between Sara and her therapist and would have loved more of them. The other characters didn't stay with me in all honesty. It didn't feel like they were particularly well-developed, but perhaps that's because the novel needed to stay very close to Sara. But I would have liked to have seen more interactions with her close female friends and her mother and more development of those characters in general.

Pace wise, I found this a bit of a slog, especially because of the subject matter. It just never really let up and I understand that is a realistic reflection of trauma but it was a tiring read for me personally.

Overall, I would recommend this. I'm not sure exactly why I didn't connect it with it as much as I was hoping. This is a very underrepresented and very particular type of pain and trauma - it's not something we read about often and for that reason, I do think this is an important read. I thought that the author handled the discussions around this with a lot of knowledge and sensitivity. It was clearly so thoughtfully written. The final sections of the novel in particular were written so well.

Many thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins/Akan Books for the advanced copy of this novel.

I found Overspill an upsetting and traumatic read, which I think was the point. Sara has a form of complex PTSD around intimacy, and gets into a serious relationship with Miles who has his own issues. It's well-written rather than enjoyable. Sara is constantly being retraumatised in the book in a series of shocks to her system, and it's almost too hard to watch, but stay with her we must.
It's important to say there is hope at the end of this harrowing story.

I read Overspill by Charlotte Paradise over a few days and was gripped from the first pages. It is a totally unique novel and I don’t think I’ve read anything like it before. The story is about Sara and her relationships, mainly her second serious boyfriend, Miles. Some chapters are seen through his eyes and some are the discussions between Sara and her therapist. The book deals with abuse in a really powerful and unexpected way. I think most women will find something they relate to in the character of Sara and her friends. Highly recommended reading.

Also thank you to the publishers for making the best formatted book I’ve ever downloaded from Netgalley. I’ve probably read close to 100 books that I’ve downloaded to kindle and this is the only one that reads like a proper e-book with chapter timings and well formatted chapters. Thank you!

3.5/5 Stars

The other day when I started this book I messaged my friend and told her "this is gonna break me" and I was right, this story really did. I don't want to give much away, however I want you to know that this narrative has many layers and that we follow Sara's journey as she slowly uncovers them and learns truths about herself and what happened in her past. It's a raw and traumatic story for sure, but it's also a story about hope and how it is possible to recover and get better at your own pace and with the help and support one might need.
Since this is Paradise's first novel I definitely want to praise her for writing such a powerful book. In terms of writing I wasn't the biggest fan honestly, some times the narrative felt a bit fragmented for my taste.

Overall it's a strong debut novel which I recommend, however I also suggest to check out the trigger warnings before going into it.

Overspill is the intricate and delicate story of Sara. When she meets Miles, she believes he might be the one to break the curse of her issues with intimacy and finally make her feel normal. It is at times, uncomfortable asking the reader to imagine interactions through Sara's eyes. Slowly, the reader is given insight into what has happened to Sara to stop her from being able to experience intimacy in her relationships. She self-deprecates and fills herself with shame around not being able to give Miles what she knows he needs. Yet, Miles is just as complex as Sara with his own issues from his past which weigh on his mind and influences his behaviour in the relationship. The plot will make you miss your stop on the tube.

For as much as you are rooting for Miles and Sara to find their way through both their pasts, you are hoping Sara is able to find her own voice and understand herself better. At times, you will sway between her staying and leaving and in the end the reader is rewarded with an ending that feels authentic to Sara. After all, perhaps the best ending is not the one you expected but the ending you deserve. Beautiful book and such an important issue covered with thoughtfulness and care. Read it.