Unfortunately this wasn't a book for me and I had to DNF it. I have tried to read more by this author and picking this one up from time to time but I have to realize that Amy Spalding isn't for me (not yet at least).

If you live in or around Los Angeles or really have just been here more than once, there’s a few very trivial silly things that might grind your gears, namely that no one in their right mind tries to park in downtown LA and those who are brave enough to try do not get a spot lmao. Also, indie coffee is really good in LA so the starbucks mentions seem a bit out of place but again, trivial and silly. On the book as a whole, I really enjoyed it. As a 20something loner, I unfortunately related very deeply to Nina and it feels like she’ll be heavy on my heart for a while. Ari was a perfectly fine love interest but since it’s not dual POV i feel like we didn’t get her as fleshed out as possible. And the third act breakup was so weird?? I’ve read a lot of romance and this one is up there with most benign miscommunication being so entirely blown out of proportion. I really did love the dynamic between Nina and Ari. What we got of Ari in terms of characterization was wonderful and her being so proud of her identity was spectacular. Nina and her relationship with her friends was everything to me. The gripes I have are minimal and come down to my personal connection with any given character and their dialogue. Overall, my pros are the characters and their relationships and my cons are the nonsensical descriptions of LA and not feeling like every character was as fleshed out as they could have been. I’m giving For Her Consideration 4.5⭐️

For Her Consideration
by Amy Spalding

Nina leaves LA after a bad breakup and puts all dream of being a screenwriter on a back burner and moves to the suburbs.

This isn’t really my type of book ie Hollywood celebrity. It’s try’s to be a fun style story but I felt it fell flat and some parts of this story I felt were odd eg when Nina basically ghosts all her friendship group when she moves the suburbs not one of them tries to contact her in the years she is gone. It wasn’t a terrible book but I felt some parts just didn’t add up. I found the book disappointing 2.5/5

Great characters and good plot in this book. At times, the miscommunication pieces of the plot got to be a bit much.

3.5⭐️s

TW/CW: minor car accident, toxic past relationship (some on page, some recounted), death of a grandparent recounted, hospitalization of a side character
Rep: plus sized lesbian main character, lesbian love interest, non-binary side character, sapphic side characters

I want to love this book more than I do. The ending was so good that it made me forget the mediocre middle and main character that made me want to throw my Kindle across the room.

The good things:
* The friend group!! While I definitely feel like they should have reached out more after Nina initially pulled away, better late than never I guess
* Max and Nina’s little work friendship (and Max now has her OWN BOOK?? I’m so excited)
* Steve the Cat
* The lack of motivation. The struggle of “This path was my dream. That is no longer realistic. How do I support myself in the meantime?”

Going back to my last bullet point, that’s why Ari also got on my nerves a lot. She did not understand Nina’s struggle of actually needing to survive all the time. Sure, Nina is also genuinely pretty well off, but even she realizes that she needs to support herself somehow. But Ari just… never understood that, until the obligatory third act breakup.

Speaking of which. The breakup was SO odd. I really thought amongst all of Nina’s deleting messages and avoiding calls that texts and calls from Ari would be waiting but - not a word? When the breakup wasn’t even like a genuine breakup because y’all actually just didn’t speak to each other again?? Like I said. Odd.

I love how everything wrapped up with this book. Bianca actually getting to be mad at Nina and expressing that. Nina realizing that she shouldn’t shoulder things on her own anymore and that she needs therapy.

Also, Lorna is the best character.

Huge thank you to Netgalley and Kensington for an ARC of this!

4 stars!

This was really cute!! I don't normally love Hollywood-centered/celebrity romances, but I thought this was a fun little rom-com with extra wins for therapy representation, a sapphic love story, and body representation. I think that it would've been nice if this had been dual POV because I love dual POV, and I didn't love the 3rd act breakup (who does) but would definitely read more from this author!


Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I love Hollywood celebrity romances, okay? I understand their desire to promote escapism through luxury, glamour, scandal and sex. And occasionally, they even teach me a lot of interesting, fun things about the entertainment industry. In fact, the other day I was down in the TRENCHES justifying Hollywood celebrity romance books being a little dramatic and larger-than-life to a YouTube comment section.
But it's all about execution, not tropes, for me. Which is to say, I did not enjoy this one at all.
And it's not just the things discussed in my bookstagram review (portrayal of white gentrified upper-class queerness as "opening doors in the industry" whereas we know irl how BIPOC queer artists are still treated). It's that Nina and Ari have zero chemistry and are both terrible people, and mutually toxic.
Idk what to say. This was disappointing. Full review on my insta

This book was so fun! I love all of the representation in this book. The main character, Nina, is so relatable and funny. It is such a sweet, cute romance to follow. Found family is one of my favorite tropes which made me love this one even more! As their relationship develops, I fell in love with Nina and Ari. I highly recommend for lovers of queer romance, found family, plus size main character, funny characters. Great romance!!

Who doesn’t love a coming of age story? But this one is with a 30-year-old character. Didn’t know that was something I needed to see represented but loved this!

Some banter, lovely dialogue and a couple that makes you want to read more about them. Great story and amazing characters!

This is a sapphic romance featuring:
• a fat femme protagonist
• an out lesbian actress love interest
• found family and great friendships
• finding yourself in your 30s
• learning to love yourself again after a bad breakup

I really liked this book and how the relationship flowed. Lots of found family and just cute moments!!

Started off strong, but lost my interest 😕

The concept of a sapphic celebrity romance is soooooo great and I was loving the first half of this book but the rest kinda was slow until the very end. I loved the plus size representation and the forbidden romance aspect of the book. Honestly my favorite part was Nina’s queer friend group!!! They are so supportive and loved getting to know the large cast of characters.

Solid 3 star read that I think others might enjoy more than I did!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC❤️

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Nina Rice has decided that self-exile is needed to save her friends from her bad habits. Just suffering a humiliating breakup where Taylor writes out a 12 point reason why Nina is not a good partner, Nina decides to hide from everyone. She moves out of LA to the <shudders> the burbs, takes a job writing where she can work remotely and rarely goes out in public. When her boss summons her to headquarters to meet Ari Fox, an up and coming actress who Nina is ghostwriting for, sparks fly, but it is one-sided? Could spending time with Ari Fox out in the public open Nina up to reopening old friendships and past career options?

My first LGBTQ character books and I gotta say - it was SO good! The growth between both Nina and Ari is written well on the pages. Not only their personal growth is captured, but their growth as a couple, too. I liked the piece that was put in about a couple who is trying to adopt a baby, and the struggles they have in doing so, because that’s real life. I also enjoy the idea of Hollywood, something about that alone is romantic, but I will say spoiled is NOT my favorite… overall, still a great love story where the characters truly feel for one another. Thanks for the opportunity to review!

I would say this was more like 3.5 stars for me. I love a celebrity romance and plus-sized rep, and this book checked both of those boxes. I found Ari to be absolutely adorable and she and Nina had fabulous chemistry. II really wish there would have been more of the two of them together, and a couple less with Nina's friends.

think my main issue was with MC Nina. After a bad breakup she completely ghosted all of her friends, who were really more of her found family. I didn't understand that from either side. Like, I get withdrawing for a bit or letting someone have space, but she just disappeared for years. And everyone acts like that isn't a big deal?
That being said, there were some great secondary characters, especially Lorna.

Overall, the book was a quick read, and sweet.

This was such a fun Sapphic read! I love that Nina was plus sized but it wasn't a huge plot point and she didn't hate herself. The email aspect was fun and overall the story was just joyful and exciting. I really enjoyed both characters and their chemistry! .I love the found family aspect and that they weren't the only gay couple in the book. Highly recommend!

A Sapphic romance with food as supporting characters, lol.

'The danger to telling a kind of story can be either seductive, meaningful or worthless. Maybe have it in as a second something that you're trying out so that you can distinguish yourself as being this very good storyteller...'

2.5

This novel had in its premise everything I could want in a queer romance, and it fell really short for me. Perhaps I had my expectations set too high, maybe I was expecting something different, but I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as I expected to. All that to say, I don't think this was a bad book, I'm sure it's going to work for a lot of people, I just am not one of them.

For Her Consideration follows Nina Rice, an aspiring scriptwriter for TV, while she more or less squanders her dreams and talents ghostwriting emails for famous people. After a bad breakup with her girlfriend Taylor three years ago (in which she got a 12-point list detailing which of her personality traits led to her being dumped) Nina ghosted her friends, and her old life, and is living alone in the suburbs of LA, her only true friend being her aunt. Her job leads her to meeting Ari Fox, a young queer actress breaking through in Hollywood, and with their interactions more frequent, it seems Nina has a hard time continuing to live the way she has.

So, to start off I will say that I went into this novel very excited to read it, but prologue itself already had me more annoyed than I would've liked. Nina is in her car, obsessing over the 12-point list of her flaws, one of which is being late and having no respect for other people's time. She is running late to meet said person who wrote the list, and in her wish to not be late she almost runs over a guy on his bike (she and Taylor break up anyway, so she almost killed this man for nothing). Following that we learn that she lives pretty much secluded, save communication with her boss and Thursday lunches she has with her aunt. Every time she speaks in the first few chapters she just has to say something "quirky" and self-deprecating. It is giving this air of trying way too hard for her to come off relatable and funny and different, but it really didn't come off that way (in my opinion). She doesn't really recover from this during this novel, though (or she does but simply not enough and definitely not fast enough).

When reading a novel like this, I think readers' enjoyment hinges so much on how much they enjoy the characters, and that was this book's biggest downfall in my eyes - I found Nina Rice as a lacklustre protagonist. While in theory, she should've been very relatable to me, on paper we share a lot of traits, something about her, the way she talks maybe, was really pushing me away and making me not want to even finish this novel. As in in the first few chapters, she kept repeating phrases like "if people still do xyz" trying to emphasise how far removed from life she had become, but it was doing nothing to make her relatable and her motives understood, and more so was it making her annoying. She also had these little quirky quips, like saying she doesn't want still or sparkling water because she's gonna spill it on herself anyways? Like I get it, you're clumsy, but this is a stranger, you could've just said "I'm good, thanks".

It seems I have far more qualms with this novel than positive things, and while that is true, I still don't think this was a bad novel, just not for me. There were certainly bright moments, Nina and Ari's relationship had a lot of cute moments, Nina's friends were sweet and supportive and Nina's aunt Lorna was such a blast (I would love a book about her and her friends and their adventures). The slice-of-life moments throughout the book really were what kept me going reading this, and I highly enjoyed moments when Nina could stop self-sabotaging because the plot actually had substance then, and not just her going on about whatever in her head. I did enjoy different body types being represented, and how Nina actually liked her own body.

I also enjoyed what seemed to be character growth by the end of the novel from Nina's point, it was much needed and also did help my overall feelings on the book. We follow the novel from Nina's perspective only, and I think this was to the detriment of the novel. Ari was a fun character and being an opposite to Nina, dual POV would have added a good balance to the novel and made it more enjoyable. This way, we only got to seem glimpses of Ari, and I think it was also a disservice to her as a character.

Now, unfortunately, I go back to things I didn't enjoy as much. Nina's friend group was super enjoyable to read about, however, I was actually quite perplexed and upset that they just weren't friends for the entirety of those three years. I understand Nina's perspective (though I do not agree with it), but the friends? How is it, that for three entire years no one tried reaching out? What kind of friends are you guys? And it is only brought up a handful of times, not explored fully, and while it's fair that her friends feel slighted about being ghosted, none of them even attempted communication.

To continue on that note, the entire third-act-breakup arc was so incredibly unnecessary! This whole thing could've been solved so fast, with one conversation, especially as both sides were in the wrong. They both crossed boundaries, but they could've talked it out for sure. They had a very brief phone call that resulted in said breakup and I was in disbelief. They didn't even talk about it properly. It was "you did x wrong, so I did y wrong, end of call (and relationship)". On top of that, Nina spend the entire book SO worried that Taylor was right in her list of flaws, that she made it so Taylor was right. Even if nothing was true at the moment Taylor wrote it, Nina was so hellbent on thinking everything would go up in flames, that it would simply because of this fear of hers (tbf I do think there was probably some truth in what Taylor said, even though I think it was an asshole move on her end as well).

All in all, I think that for every thing I liked about the novel, there were about three I disliked. This is, again, just my opinion, and the book reads quite fast, so if you are interested in it, don't let my review deter you!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!

A cute wholesome and entertaining sapphic read perfect for women trying to branch out of the usually tragic tropes associated with quality in queer literature. The characters are fun to read and their chemistry is carefully built throughout the story. However, Nina's obliviousness gets exhausting at times, for it unnecessarily drags out the romantic plot. Overall, a recommended read for queer chick-lit fans who want to see themselves in the stories they read.