Review: For Her Consideration by Amy Spalding

Since a crushing breakup three years ago, Nina Rice has written romance, friends, her dreams of scriptwriting for TV, and even LA proper out of her life. Instead, she’s safely out in the suburbs in her aunt’s condo working her talent agency job from home, managing celebrity email accounts, and certain that’s plenty of writing—and plot—for her life. But a surprise meeting called by Ari Fox, a young actress on everyone’s radar, stirs up all kinds of feelings Nina thought she’d deleted for good . . .

Ari is sexy, out and proud, and a serious control freak, according to Nina’s boss. She has her own ideas about how Nina should handle her emails—and about getting to know her ghostwriter. When she tells Nina she should be writing again, Nina suddenly finds it less scary to revisit her abandoned life than seriously consider that Ari is flirting with her. Between reconnecting with her old crew and working on a new script, a relationship with a movie star seems like something she’ll definitely mess up—but what could be more worth the risk?

Amy Spalding’s For Her Consideration is full of heat and heart as Nina learns that her story just might include the kind of love that lasts.

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Nina’s job is emails — literally. She writes emails for LA celebrities who don’t have the time to write their own, and she is really good at it. Who cares that her dream of writing television shows doesn’t seem to be going anywhere? But when up and coming queer actress Ari Fox doesn’t like Nina’s emails and Nina’s boss dictates they spend time together so Nina can get Ari’s voice right, the chemistry between the two is undeniable.

I loved Amy Spalding’s The Summer of Jordi Perez, so I was so excited to get the opportunity to read her adult debut! Overall, For Her Consideration is a fun romance with the lively background of queer Los Angeles. Over the course of the book, we not only get to know Nina and Ari, but a delightful cast of background characters including Nina’s friend group and her great aunt (all an absolute hoot).

However, For Her Consideration is also Nina’s personal story. At the end of her last serious relationship a few years ago, her ex gave her a list of, essentially, what she considered to be Nina’s deficiencies, and claimed these traits would drive away everyone in her life. Naturally, this really got into Nina’s head and she pushed most of the people in her life away. On top of that, she has let her career go stagnant. Throughout the novel, Nina has to learn how to move past her preconceived notions of herself and get herself unstuck. In the end, I was very satisfied with the resolution to these plots, but it was quite difficult to read some of Nina’s self-deprecation, which is in the majority of the book.

Although the book is generally quite light, I didn’t find it to be very bingeable. In the middle of the book the pacing dragged and the storyline was a bit repetitive, so it was difficult to read a lot in one day (which is what I was doing).

What I did really appreciate is that although there was a third act breakup, in the end Nina and Ari were able to work through the issues they had in a really mature, adult way. They acknowledged they both made mistakes and had things they needed to work on, and actually talked through their issues.

If you are a fan of celebrity romances, or looking for a fun, queer romance to pick up this summer, I would certainly recommend For Her Consideration.