Such a cute and engaging romance novel <3 I really enjoyed reading from Nina's perspective and the level of growth she experience throughout the story. The build of Nina and Ari's relationship was very sweet and I was really rooting for them. I'm a sucker for an entertainment industry story and this one was really great!

This one reads very much like a YA novel and fell quite flat for me. I was kinda forcing myself to finish it, to be honest.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

🅵🅾🆁 🅷🅴🆁 🅲🅾🅽🆂🅸🅳🅴🆁🅰🆃🅸🅾🅽 ♡
Is a Sapphic love story where Nina Rice, a socially awkward talent agency ghostwriter [I can't believe this is a thing!!] who basically crawled into a hole after being shamed by a former girlfriend, meets, and falls for Ari Fox - a sexy queer actress with strong Clea DuVall/Natasha Lyonne vibes.
➕️ Nina is plus-sized. I LOVE FAT GIRL REP. WE BELONG IN ALL THE GENRES. WE DESERVE LOVE AND NOT JUST AS A KINK.
➕️ You're gonna fall in love with all her friends. And Lorna. And Lorna's friends. This book is like the best buffet of side characters I've had in a while.
➕️ FOUND FAMILY. This is climbing the charts of my favorite tropes
➕️ Queer rep. There's LOADS of it, and not just lesbians!
➕️ Character growth!!! A huge pet peeve of mine is when the MC makes the same stupid mistakes throughout the book, but no. Nina gets solid growth that was so inspiring, I briefly worked on my own resume.

This book is gonna be great for fans of Meryl Wilsner & Casey McQuiston.

Overall, I give it 4 stars.

Unfortunately this was boring, I found myself forcing me to finish it. It’s told in first person and via one POV which didn’t help because the character of that POV is annoying and reads much younger than 30 (actually this whole book reads like a YA). Definitely should have been third person with dual POV.
There was NO chemistry between the MC and LI. None!
I am surprised this isn’t a first draft or a debut. Or maybe it was because of the way the author wrote the MC as super immature that it read like a first draft?
This was my first book by this author and I doubt I’ll read another.

Also, I just want to add the word laugh, laughter and laughed are said 178 times…….

3.5

This was cute (…and spicy) but mostly I am glad that Nina got her well-needed therapy. There were a lot of moments that I had to pause my reading because I was getting such second hand embarrassment. Hated that for me.

The third-act breakup was so fucking strange though. Nina asked Ari to not do something, Ari did it anyway, and Nina responded in an unproductive manner. They spoke about it on the phone, Nina hung up, and then they just ghosted each other for like a month? Strange.

Also, Nina was a very infuriating character to read. Taylor’s list of grievances about Nina was lowkey correct, albeit inappropriately delivered, and I’m glad Nina got to hear those words. Even if it meant she went from 0-100 about everything mentioned and somehow became just as toxic in the opposite manner. Whatever, she’s getting therapy now.

This was… okay. The premise intrigued me initially but overall the writing didn’t flow and I had a hard time relating to Nina. The pacing also felt a little off

I really enjoyed this adult debut from Amy Spalding, a new-to-me author!

Nina and Ari were adorable together, both flawed in their own ways but taking a chance on love anyway because we can be works and progress AND deserving of love. I really enjoyed the group dynamic between Nina and her friends, especially the fact that they all felt like individuals. I'm always in awe of authors who can create a group of characters that interact often but DON'T feel like carbon copies of each other. It's not an easy task, and Amy handled it with ease.

I loved the representation in this story. I'm starting to read more and more books that include characters who go by they/them pronouns and they NEVER make it a big deal — because it isn't. But it does make me pause the first time the character is introduced because it really is that easy, and I think about every person who will be able to identify with that character and see themselves represented. Representation matters, and I'm proud to support art that makes it a priority.

The fat representation was also spot on. There are a few authors I adore who do this really well, including Denise Williams and Jenny Howe, and I'm happy to add Amy to that list. We don't need stories of fat women who hate themselves and their size — we need stories of women who embrace their bodies, love themselves, and exude confidence. I loved Nina learning to let go of some insecurities as she let Ari in, and it serves as proof that our partners aren't critiquing every little thing on our bodies because Ari appreciated every, single, part of Nina.

As much as I enjoyed the story, there were a few parts that just didn't hit for me, First, I find it extremely unrealistic that Nina would fall off the face of the earth for three years following her breakup with Taylor, a RUMOR that she DIED would circulate, and none of her friends would try to reach out. That doesn't make any sense to me, personally.

I was also a little confused as to why Joyce continued to call Ari a difficult client...yet we saw NO evidence of this...ever. What was the point of her saying that every time she spoke to Nina about her? It felt repetitive but with no real explanation, which in turn just made it unnecessary.

But my biggest issue was the last 25% of the book. I noticed that the romance started kind of early on in the book, which meant we'd be getting a third act breakup. This breakup, however, was reminiscent of something I might experience in high school...and not in my early thirties. Nina acted like a child, full stop. I highly doubt any 32-year-old woman would be SO infuriated that her partner shared her script idea with a friend in the industry, that she would simply hang up the phone effectively ending the relationship. There was no ACTUAL conversation about a breakup, just a phone call that went from 1-100 and then ended. Then she proceeds to, once again, ghost ALL of her friends, retreat inward, and tell herself 'well, this is what my ex said would happen and I fulfilled the prophecy!' It wasn't believable, and it was frustrating to read. WHY is she still giving any brain space to something her EX said to her over three years ago and letting it dictate her life? WHY did she react so childishly to Ari sharing her project with someone who could help her? I get that Ari did it when she specifically asked her not to, but something of that magnitude doesn't warrant the response Nina gave. It felt as though the author was unsure of how to create conflict to cause the breakup and landed on this. It actually brought the book down from five stars to four stars for me because I spent the last 25% of the book...rolling my eyes at how ridiculous it was.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it, but the last 1/4 left much to be desired.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

This review originally appeared on Goodreads.

The vibes!! Set in sunny LA with an amazing cast of characters that make up a wonderfully gay found family. This book is truly a celebration of queer joy in everyday life, and I really loved that. In addition to that, it’s a story about Nina finding herself and realizing what it is she wants and how she intends to get there. She may be a ticking time bomb throughout the story (and you’re waiting for her to blow up), but despite that she truly is lovable. Her relationship with Ari is wonderful, but not the only aspect to the story as we see their lives and the lives of those around them.

Objectively I have absolutely no issues with this book and it is queer perfection, but for some reason I couldn’t quite LOVE it. I do highly recommend it if you’re looking for some sapphic movie star vibes ✨Rating: 3.5 stars.

For Her Consideration by Amy Spalding is a refreshing sapphic romance.

Nina and Ari are wonderful characters. And the food, oh my gosh all the food!

The story is told from Nina's POV which I think is unique as I wander what the story would of been like with alternative POV's.

There were some serious issues which made the book more relatable.

A sweet romance that I really enjoyed.

For Her Consideration was pretty cute and I loved the beginning of the book, but towards the middle it started to drag and I lose connection with the characters.

A new f/f celebrity romance. Yay. The main character Nina is hard to like in the beginning. She has gone almost invisible for the last three years since the a bad breakup. She works for a talent agency managing celebrity email accounts which she can do from her condo in the suburbs of LA. She is good at her job but she wants to be a tv writer. She is called into meet a client Ari, an up and coming queer actress. Ari is said to be demanding by the agency (a couple of times) but she never appears that way in the book. Nina and Ari hit it off and go on outings together. Actually the getting to know each other is very wholesome with easy going talks. Nina in the mean time also reconnects with her core friend group. A really big deal in the story is “chosen family” but these people never reached out in three years. They even joke there was a rumor that she died. It didn’t fit the story well.

Obviously Nina and Ari become more to each other. And I like that the change is realistic and gradual. Everything is told from Nina’s POV and a lot of time you feel her anxiety and how poorly she thinks of herself. Of course she can’t change until she is ready. And the middle of the story seems to go very slowly. I did like the story over all but it has a few flaws I’ve mentioned. Ari is almost too good to be true other that her one action that causes a little drama.

If I get a chance to vote I like the newer cover with the blue background more than the original cover. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington Books for the ARC in exchange for a review. (3.5 Stars)

I absolutely adored this book! It felt queer through and through, the romance was SO full of yearning. Great fat rep. Honestly the only thing that would have made it better would be dual POV. I wanted to see Nina from Ari's POV. but Nina was incredibly relatable, the plot was rich and enhanced the romance. I loved the full cast of friends and family 🥰 would definitely read again.

I really liked this book. I liked that it "follows" the standard romance formula BUT that it has a few hallmarks that make it it's own and distinguish it from all the other "romance novels" out there.

There's almost nothing "too fast" or "too anything" about this book. It takes a beautiful pace, which some may find slow when comparing with other novels on the market, but I think that if we think about romance novels as both about the development of a relationship and also as the individual's growth and development, we can see how this novel more equally prioritizes the two and I appreciate the attention given to that.

The friend group (plus Lorna) are a great complement to the star duo and it's a lovely way to showcase the diversity within the sub-genre as well as the full and successful lives of these women.

Tropes: Celebrity Romances; LGBTQ2+

If you are a fan of celebrity rom coms like Sizzle Reel by Carlyn Greenwald, it is highly likely you will enjoy reading For Her Consideration by Amy Spalding.
What is For Her Consideration about? The story revolves around Nina, a Hollywood agent's assistant whose dreams about becoming a screenwriter and being in a relationship shattered when her ex girlfriend broke up with her. However, a surprise meeting called by Ari Fox, a queer young actress on everyone's radar, stirs up all kinds of feelings Nina thought she'd deleted for good...
Even though the promise of the story is entertaining, it strikes me that it was badly executed. I am going to set forth my views in For Her Consideration and how it should have been improved.
Firstly, the narrative pacing was excruciatingly slow. Some chapters of the book could have been summarized in one paragraph and the author paid heed to scenes that were not relevant for the development of the plot. Were I the Author, I would have wrote the story concisely.
Secondly, the main character's narrative voice. Even though Nina is a complex character whose insecurities are worth to be explored, I believe it was repetetive and did not contribute to the plot development. To my mind, the author could have prevented this by adding Ari's narrative voice, turning the book into a dual POV one. By doing this, the reader could disconnect from Nina's negative thoughts while they keep enjoying the story.
Despite all this, I will give Amy Spalding credit for her prose. Thanks to her writing style, the book is easy to understand. Another aspect that is worth mentioning is the representation (lesbians, no binaries) throughout the book, which I consider important to be featured in every story. Even though I would not recommend the book overall, it’s important to mention that this novel highlights the importance of platonical and familial relationships, which may appeal to other readers.


Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange of an honest review.

For the past three years, thirty-two year-old Nina has put her life on pause following a toxic breakup. She doesn’t date, doesn’t pursue her career goal of writing for TV, and doesn’t even speak to her best friend from college. She’s essentially coasting through her days, while working an unfulfilling job and visiting her great aunt weekly. Thankfully, things are looking up.

Spalding’s main character is easy to relate to in times of heartache and lack of motivation; the true gravity of how many ties she cut at the end of her last relationship though, only becomes more and more apparent as the story goes on. It’s almost hard to understand how it could have progressed to that point, even if Nina lives all the way out in Santa Clarita.

For Her Consideration was an easy going read without too much drama or anxiety-inducing scenes; however, it was difficult at times to stay captivated by the story. Nina’s apprehension with moving forward in life was reciprocated by my own lack of desire to finish the novel. Once the main relationship began, I already felt a sense of completion and had to push myself to keep going for the remaining half of the story.

It was at no fault of the complex characters, their relationships, or the well-illustrated setting, but because of the low-stakes vibe. Of course I wanted Nina to get her life together and get back with her love interest, Ari. There was just a lack of imminent need for it to happen any time soon. I didn’t feel the heartache quite so deep, I didn’t feel the pain. The strongest emotion was apathetic indifference, which is very realistic, but not attention grabbing.

If you are looking for a cute Hollywood story with found family, good queer representation, and a happy ending, For Her Consideration will do just fine.

I received an ARC from Kensington Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This Sapphic celebrity romance started off soooo strong! I was truly rooting for the two MCs to find their HEA but then the story draaaaaaaaged so much in the middle I just kept wishing for the end to come. That said, it did have great found family relationships, amazing Fat rep and a believable and heartwarming slow burn romance. Good on audio and recommended for fans of I kissed a girl by Jennet Alexander or Something to talk about by Meryl Wilsner. Much thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanna start with the positives, which is that I really loved the writing style, the character growth, and this gorgeous queer found family.

All of these characters that surrounded Nina were beautiful, wholesome people that I would 100% love to be friends with. They had such big hearts and loved Nina so, so much and all the moments with her friends were genuinely my favourite moments.

I also really loved Nina’s relationship with both her boss and Max, and the way these relationships grew over the course of the book. Max in particular was an absolutely adorable delight.

And Lorna and all of her retirement village friends were so much fun to be around. Honestly, this entire cast shone so vibrantly.

It was Nina that I couldn’t vibe with. I understood completely why she had the hangups she did and as someone with pretty bad anxiety and intrusive thoughts, I understood the conclusions she came to. I just found it frustrating to read about. I hated that she wouldn’t just use her words and I think, more than that, she felt weak as a character. I just couldn’t sympathise with her no matter how much I logically understood, and it really made this book difficult to get through at times.

And I think that despite how much I liked Ari, my dislike of Nina meant I felt no spark in their relationship. I genuinely didn’t feel invested in the outcome. I wasn’t rooting for them as much as I should have.

This was a fun celebrity sapphic romance. With a slow burn, friends to lovers, food, Hollywood and an awesome group of friends, I soaked this one up pretty quickly. While I feel like things dragged at certain points, for the most part, I enjoyed this romance in a way that I did not expect. Mostly because I’d seen a few people I know rating it low, so I went into it with zero expectations and it did the trick.

Nina Rice dreams of being a screenwriter, but hasn’t been able to finish her script or find the courage to actually take the next steps. So in the meantime, she’s ghostwriting emails for the talent agency where she works and living her life the best she can. She’s complex and relatable and lives her life by the seat of her pants. Nina isn’t perfect, but when her ex girlfriend ends their relationship with a 12 point list of why Nina is not good enough, that entire list becomes her personality. And it blocks Nina from quite literally everything. I wanted to hurt her ex for that email, because being told that all the things that make up who you are is bad is disheartening. When one of the celebrity clients she ghostwrites for sets up a meeting to discuss the way the emails are being written, Nina’s life is completely altered.

I wish we got Ari’s perspective as well, because I was so desperate to know more about this woman every time she was on the page. But, I did enjoy Nina and Ari’s relationship and their connection. I liked the friendship they formed and the slow build of their relationship that followed. I enjoyed watching Nina struggle with her feelings and trying to understand whether or not this thing with Ari and the feelings she felt were just a figment of her imagination. It was all kinds of fun.

What I loved the most were the friends that Nina left behind after the break up. They’re a selection of people that I would love to be friends with. Their individual personalities came through so clearly and I enjoyed how much time and effort was put into these connections. I liked how Nina was a different person with them too, how she found herself and her balance when she was around these people who had always been there for her, even when she wasn’t there for them.

In short, in a lot of ways, I understood where Nina was coming from and the choices she made. I don’t support all of the, but I get it. LOL

Thank you Netgalley and Kensington Books for providing me an ARC in exchange for this review!
For Her Consideration has been on my radar for awhile now. A plus sized woman and her hot celebrity crush? Sounds like a dream. But this was very flat for me. LA was the third main character. With no knowledge of the city, the heavy reliance on street names, neighborhoods, and restaurants made the book feel a bit like a map. I also wanted to love Nina, but she could be so insecure to the point of frustration. Ari was an okay as well, but the fast that she called Nina “Nina Rice” almost every sentence gave me the most intense ick. This was just not the book for me. I don’t have a ton to say beyond that it was okay.

Nina Rice has spent the last 3 years ghost writing celebrity emails for a talent agency. Back in the day she had been consumed with trying to be a screen writer. Her time management skills lacking (among other things) she was dumped by her girlfriend and dropped by mutual friends.....or so she assumed. She works from home and fiddles around with a screen-play sometimes.
Ari Fox is an up and coming celeb on the radar as someone to watch. Out and proud, Ari wants to ensure that any media drops containing her name are authentic. When the two women meet we are set off in a romance with humor, food - which made me hungry and doses of social media!
I liked that Spalding wrote Nina as a flawed but curvaceous woman comfortable with her plus-size. Ari pulls her out of her comfort zone. She begins to enjoy old friendships once again after misunderstanding are cleared up. Lorna was a stand out in the side cast - all nicely fleshed out. I hoped that Nina would finish her screen play since that would tie up the storyline nicely. A bit of angst then we have a happy ending.
This is my first read of the author's work and I look forward to more from her.