Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really cute romance with a few spicier scenes included, but unfortunately, it wasn't something I necessarily enjoyed due to the dynamic of the characters,

Nina Rice is not living her best life - after moving to LA to write a script for television, going through a horrendous break up with the woman she wanted to marry, and losing all of her friends (her own doing), Nina is now a remote worker for an agency, where she responds to celebrity emails in place of them. This life was working out great for her up until one of her clients, Ari Fox, complains that she wasn't all the way thrilled with the communication that Nina was providing,
Ari Fox is an up-and-coming LGBTQ actress, on her way to an Oscar. She meets for dinner with Nina, and her boss Joyce, to settle the communication issues she has, but ends up falling head over heels with Nina.

I think you can tell where the rest is going. And while the plot is SO PROMISING, there's some things that I can't overlook when it comes to character development. The two main points are below.

1: Ari is... for lack of a better word... Pushy. And its not in a cute, playful, "I'm Joking," kind of way. It's cringe-worthy. How many times does your girlfriend need to say "No," before it clicks? Oh wait... It doesn't click. And that's the reason for the inevitable rom-com romantic split.

2: Nina has NO character development until 94% of the book is over. She actually gets WORSE up until her and Ari make up and the relationship has seemingly made her "whole," again. It's very off-putting.

I really wanted to fall head over heels for this book and the characters, but I found myself wanting more of the side characters - Nina's friends - instead of Ari and Nina, and that really is a huge issue.

3.5/4
A celebrity Rom com that felt like much more. Nina Rice ghosts all her friends after a particularly bad break up. She holes up in the suburbs working remotely for an agency where her job is ghostwriting celebrity emails. That is until her job/life forces her out. Enter Ari Fox ::swoon:: but honestly what I liked more about this story was her reuniting with her friends/found family.
Love all the LQBTQ+ representation. I love hearing more pronouns
Over all cute quick read.
Thank you NetGalley, Recorded Books, and Kensington Books for this early copy of the audiobook!

I am so happy I requested this audio! This was my first from this author and I absolutely enjoyed it! I’m a sucker for a celebrity RomCom and one that also is about self discovery! The MC Nina had some major growth throughout the book and my heart broke for her at times. Her self doubt felt relatable and her ex GF I literally hated! The smoke show Ari was a winner for me. I loved her character and how she was so chill and loving. Besides those two to love there is a cast of characters that made the book too! Nina friends & brunch outings made me wish I could attend. I also would love to join her on Thursdays to visit her cool aunt and her friends at the retirement home for lunch. I’m definitely looking forward to more books by this author!

Thank you @netgalley and Kensington Books for this ALC

Nina might win a medal for olympic-level of self-sabotaging but she also get’s herself an actress girlfriend who is utterly obsessed with her.

I loved all the side characters in this book. Nina’s aunt is absolutely wonderful, her delightfully queer friends are a friend group I envy, and her love interest, Ari Fox, is Cool and oozes charming sexiness. What I’m a little ’huh?’ about is how on one hand we see the friend group act as this found family, we see them reach out to people, yet we start the book after three years of no contact and even a rumor that Nina was dead, yet none of her friends reached out or tried to check up on her? I don’t know, I would’ve bought this more if the situation was more of a ‘contact fizzled out over time’ or that they start out not as close as they used to be due to Nina’s slight ghosting tendencies but the start just does not reflect the relationship we see them have throughout the book at all.

Ari is a bit of a unrealistic dream girl you wish you were pursued by, but hey, if the hetero romances can have billionaires who run after broke college students and we all accept it as normal, the sapphics should get an Ari Fox without us being too critical about it! The romance is captivating and manages to navigate the client/employee relationship really well. I wish we could’ve gotten her a little more, maybe gotten a few chapters from her POV though.

The book focuses a lot on how the break up with her ex, three years ago, really messed Nina’s self image up and derailed her life because of that. Ghosting her friends, not wanting a new relationship, staying in a job instead of following her true passions… we see her one by one tackle these and work through this. At times it ended up a little exhausting following Nina while she is stuck in moments of self doubt but I liked how it showed that getting into a relationship or having a cool friend group is not easy fix for internal struggles.

The romance in this is cute and fun, but the queer friendships and found family aspect of this book were absolutely amazing! Thank you NetGalley and Kensington for an Arc for an honest review.

I loved this book, the characters were some of the most loveable and genuine that I have come across in quite some time. The perfect plot to drag any lover of romance fiction out of a reading slump. Amy Spalding has created a complete gem with this book.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5334220522

this was a solid romance that I really enjoyed. The fact that one of the main character was a fat queer women brought me to much joy. This book also had some amazing female friendships which I can never turn down!

I'll be honest and say when first listening to this I did not have high hopes but I was soon proven wrong. With a slightly slow star to begin with (which may have been because the audiobook was quite slow), the book soon picked up the pace. I loved Ari and found that she was a character that I loved learning more about. Nina on the other hand took a bit longer to get used to but I still liked her character at the end. I do feel however that Nina's insecurities got a little too much at some points but I could still understand why she thought that way. I loved the relationship between both Ari and Nina however and felt it was explored very nicely.

Even after being dumped over three years ago, Nina still has not been able to fully get over it. Her ex has made her believe she was a toxic person who did not deserve happiness or anyone. But in comes Ari who is a flirtatious and confident person and Nina finds it hard to not act out on the clear sparks that have been created between the two of them.

This book was narrated by Sophie Amoss and I liked how each character sounded so different. I felt that Ari's voice fitted her extremely well and that it made her seem even hotter than she was described. (As you can tell I liked Ari A LOT)

I have mixed feelings about Nina's friends. I felt that we were meant to feel bad for them and yet they made little to no attempt to communicate with Nina after her breakup.

The main and only thing which I did not like as much was the speed of the audiobook however I was able to fix this by speeding the time up. I just felt that with how slow the paste was, I began to get confused and forgot a lot of what was being said. I feel that I would have liked this book more if I had read it instead of listened to it because it ended up taking a very long to listen to.

All in all, I rated this 3.5 stars.

Thank you RB Media and NetGalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to RB Media for the audiobook for For Her Consideration by Amy Spalding. This was a fun audiobook and the story had a lot of strengths including of course inclusive themes on love and also sexual identity, fun secondary characters with Nina's Aunt and also with Nina's friends (I actually wanted more of the story of their friendship, that needs it's own book). There are a lot of plot points and vibrant secondary characters that round out this story but have me wanting more.... so the parts I want more of... Amy Spalding you did a nice job of making me want more, like Ari wanting more time and tacos with Nina and a night at TGI Fridays and a mall pretzel (nice notes there, relatable vibes).

I do have a love for stories about celebrity/every day person tropes so this was my main reason for wanting to listen to this one; that part of the story was fun but it was also nicely behind the scenes, more about Ari as a person and not a celebrity and I liked how she gave voice to her insecurities. Nina was of course the MC , I think she was a complex character with a lot of vulnerabilities that I wanted to explore more, including her background and also her history with her friends and what happened when she kind of ghosted everyone following the breakup that was mostly a prologue to this story.

There were points though that also felt slow or needed more depth. I loved all the points in the story but each needed it's own book: why did Nina's friends let her go when they seemed to really love her? (I don't question nina's reaction to that breakup, what her ex said was hurtful and when you are vulnerable in a relationship and maybe filled with more doubts that you realize... what she said was hard). What was really underneath Nina, who seemed at times confident but then also not confident? Why did she stop writing? I want a whole story about the past lives of Lorna and her nursing home friends... perhaps this just means it was a strong story and I want more of these characters in other books, a compliment to the author and her word here.

A... I can't believe I would say this but... I think the chemistry, food scenes, the slow burn vibes and build up... this should be a mini series. I think some of the fun of the book would translate so well to the screen and I am a a book is better person most of the time.

Thank you, NetGalley for this advance copy of For Her Consideration in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first Sapphic read, and I really enjoyed it!
This book is a Hollywood romance about Nina (a scriptwriter) and Ari (a movie star)
I absolutely loved the body positivity throughout, we need more of that in books please!
The characters were likeable and the food sounded delicious. It was just a joy of a book.

3.5 I think this was a cute romance novel! Maybe not the most life altering book I've ever read, but it made me smile and laugh, and there were some really nice moments that I enjoyed. That being said, I also had some issues with it, so overall a good book, but maybe not amazing.

I liked the flirting between the main character and the love interest. I think that they had a really fun and sexy dynamic, and I definitely fell for Ari a bit too. I also really loved Nina's relationship with her group of friends, and especially the connection that she had to Lorna. The moments in the story that made me the most emotional were definitely the ones that showcased these particular character relationships, and I think they were well developed throughout the story.

I loved that all the characters were very queer and also very different. It showcased people not only living but thriving at different stages in their lives which is always refreshing to see, especially when it comes to queer characters. I also appreciated that Nina being a plus-size woman wasn't something that was quickly brushed over; it came up on multiple occasions, and while Nina always had a grounded and nuanced understanding of the way her body existed in society (especially in LA), I loved seeing a fat woman love and appreciate her body, and have her body be loved and appreciated by others.

In general, I would say that there were definitely a lot of moments in the book where I was really enjoying myself, but there were also quite a few moments where I was... bored. Or even annoyed. I read the audiobook and sometimes I was so engrossed in the story that I picked up my physical copy to follow along, but other times I was really uninterested in what was happening, and couldn't find any desire to rewind and refocus.

I also found the third act breakup ridiculous. I mean I understand that Nina's past breakup had messed with her head and given her all these insecurities and misconceptions about herself. But nothing could've justified that moment. Talk about immaturity, especially for someone in her early 30s. In that moment, it was extremely hard to feel any real empathy or understanding towards her.

I have one last issue which I consider to be much more of a personal preference; my rating is a 3.5 regardless of this particular detail. But I'm a big fan of clear character descriptions and specific labels, especially in LGBTQ+ contemporary novels. And while I do appreciate the word "lesbian" being used in the book, it did throw me off that Nina never actually used it to describe herself—even though she clearly is a lesbian. She mostly referred to herself as "queer", but it was never clear to me if that's actually the label she preferred or if she was using it in the same way lesbians often use "gay" as just a general descriptor.

The book covers also bother me a little. And I don't want this to reflect necessarily on the author herself, because I know authors don't always make the decisions when it comes to their book covers. But I could not wrap my head around Ari's description. I think, based on context clues and specific passages in the novel, that she's probably a soft butch. But she looks like two completely different people on the UK cover and the US cover. The reason why this bothers me so much is that if I were to recommend this book to people, I don't know if I could or should advertise it as having a butch love interest. Maybe masc-leaning, but even that feels like a stretch based on the UK cover. I just would've liked more clarity on that front.

Regardless, as I mentioned, that's more of a personal detail. The book itself is a fun and easy read, but I wouldn't consider it to be one of my favourite sapphic romance novels. You would like this if you're someone who regularly enjoys lighthearted, easygoing romcoms, but I wouldn't recommend it to someone if I'm trying to convince them to get into the genre.

A sweet novel about a woman learning to love herself and accept the kind of love she deserves.

After being dumped by her ex-girlfriend for a multitude of ridiculous reasons, Nina's self confidence is shot to hell. Ari Fox, sexy, confident tv star, might change all that

I related very strongly to Nina and I think that's why I found her character so frustrating. She was constantly doubting herself and her relationships, especially to Ari and her queer found family (who she had all but abandoned after her horrible past relationship). She thinks she's a burden and that the people she loves are better off without her. Same girl. It's hard to watch others try to connect with her while she's pushing so hard to keep them away.

I was a little bit in love with Ari. She was sexy, smart and so patient in her relationship with Nina. She also had flaws, and those are not idealized away.

I absolutely love their relationship and thought the way Spalding portrayed their disagreements was realistic and relatable.

It was a sweet romance that gave a realistic look into how a relationship between two people with very different outlooks, backgrounds and places in the world might work with an amazing audiobook narrator that REALLY brought the characters to life.

I loved this! I was nervous because I’ve read a book with a slightly similar vibe and it was boring. But this was definitely not boring! I loved the characters and the storyline. I definitely will be picking up a copy eventually for my shelves!

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this audio ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: February 21, 2023

A sapphic celeb/normie relationship. A bit of insta-love which I always struggle with—but this turned up and I was rooting for them in the end, despite the 3rd act conflict/fight losing me a bit. Audio has Ari very breathy and porny…makes her come across smarmy. I also had a kindle version of this and read some parts vs the audio to see. Just would’ve enjoyed this much more in print than audiobook so I could put my own voices to these characters!

Super sweet love story - the more I read, the more I found it to be the perfect book for a writer friend of mine to read. I fell in love with the insecurities and mental neuroses, and stayed for how two flawed humans are able to find each other and help make each other better people.

I'm grateful for Recorded Books RB Media for the ARC via NetGalley. Sophie Moss was a beautiful narrator and held me down for the entirety of the novel.

I loved loved loved this. I always feel hesitant about romances. While I like the genre, it’s hard for them to feel original to me. However, this felt like an original & sweet rom com. The main character experienced such relatable emotions following a break up with an ex who seemed to try be set on convincing her she was doomed to make any friend and future girlfriend miserable. Please let there be a sequel!

I am a huge fan of Amy Spalding's young adult work, and her adult debut did not disappoint! I loved the world of greater Los Angeles and the celeb-adjacent life that Nina brought us into with her romance with Ari Fox. I also thought the narrator was fantastic and did a wonderful job emphasizing the com in Amy's rom. If you love celeb romance, this is a great one.

If there is any way to convince me to read a book, I’d to just say that it is sapphic. This was such a swoon worthy read and I love romances with a famous celebrity. I quite liked listening to the audiobook, The voice actor was very soothing.

This was heartwarming!

I laughed out loud SO many times reading this. I absolutely ADORED Lorna and would literally give anything to be able to attend a Thursday lunch with her retirement home gang. I also loved Ari's cat, Steve, who Ari claimed existed, but no one ever saw. Nina's inner dialogue had me rolling more than once as well.

Nina felt like a very real person to me, but she also infuriated me. She was the queen of self-deprecation and jumping to conclusions. I found it extremely selfish that any time the slightest thing went wrong in her life, she immediately cut everyone out and would isolate herself, regardless of what her friends were going through. For example, her best friend and her wife were going through the process of adopting a child, but due to a break up, Nina completely cut them out and 'forgot' to write a letter of recommendation for them. I would struggle to continue being friends with someone like that, but honestly, Nina's friends were one of the best parts of the story. It was refreshing to see her friends call her out for her actions and push her to go to therapy instead of just letting everything slide.

I enjoyed Nina and Ari's relationship and felt that they were good for each other. I struggled with the miscommunication trope/climax. Actually, no communication would be a better description. If you have read any of my previous reviews, you already know this is my biggest pet peeve in stories.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. This book almost felt like a conversation I was having with a friend. I loved the importance represented in this story of found family, family/friend acceptance of who you are, finding yourself, working to better yourself, and the honest discussions of how we are all human and make mistakes. Witty, funny, and full of pop culture references, this story addresses hard and meaningful topics in a fun, light-hearted, and heartwarming manner.

This has officially made the list of one of my favorite romances! Nina and Ari, and their gaggle of supporting friends/family were so well developed. It was as if they could jump off the page and easily attend your weekly brunch session. This has all the hallmarks of a cute/mildly spicy romance, but the heart of the novel is just bursting at the seams. This is truly a story of what happens in love when we are our own worst enemy, and when we allow the worst thoughts about ourselves to become our self-worth, and what happens when you see past the B.S. to the shambles of a life that you actually created for yourself. Then how you can pick up the pieces, fix up the walls, and let your chosen family help rebuild and make you stronger. All while trying not to push away or run from the love of your life, of course. This was so so so so good, and I can't wait for release day so everyone can get their hands on it!