The Overthinkers

(Paperback)

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Four people, figuring out sex, love, and how to adult. Sydney - one of those places that just consumes you. A private school boy, a tortured drug dealer, a starving writer and a gay outcast, try to do their best as they navigate through the unspoken rules which govern the fast paced, status obsessed harbour city.

Benji: desperate to stand on his own, and be perceived as separate to his status-driven family.
Francesca: plotting her remarkable and glamorous future.
Leo: the confident gay-sian, but despite the pretense, lacks a sense of identity and self-worth.
Hamish: fell into drugs to distinguish himself.

Four stories interlaced together. Anxiety masked as confidence. Ambitions as arrogance. Insecurities which fester until the cracks appear in the perfect faade


"I laughed. I cried. Sometimes at the same time!' Tim Ferguson.

"Portolan and Cheongs voices stitch seamlessly together to lay out a funny, honest and extremely relatable story, so clearly born of the 2020s. I couldnt get enough of it!"Marlee Silva

Author Bio

Lisa Portolan is an author and researcher from Sydney. Her PhD relates to digital intimacies, in particular dating apps and modern romance. She has three books published, including best-selling, Happy As, and cult queer-lit hit, The Overthinkers. She writes regularly for The Conversation, in relation to love, intimacy and dating, and is featured on day-time television and radio. Her work through Western Sydney University focuses on the concept of high-maintenance women, the notion of the Aussie Bloke, and other narratives, and cultural and social idioms invoked in modern dating and romance. She is also the host of the Slow Love podcast series (top ten in 2020). Ben is a PR consultant and accidental first-time author of The Overthinkers. An openly-gay, cis man, and son of first-generation Chinese Malay immigrants, Ben grew up in suburbia as an outlier in both the Aussie and Chinese communities. Instead, Ben attempted to make connections in a very closeted, young LGBT+ community. As a young adult, Ben felt embarrassed when talking about mental health issues, and heard similar stories from his close friends, which drove him to write his debut novel with Lisa Portolan.