Who doesn't love a rich, charismatic, GORGEOUS playboy falling for the nerdy girl, there's a reason it's done so much, because it just works!! I loved Hunter and Sailor and their evolution from enemies to friends to lovers, they had stellar chemistry and the tension was soo good! You can also see the seeds for the next books and I am SO ready for all of them!

The 5 girl thing was really, really weird, I'm not sure if LJ Shen is an author I'd be interested in reading from further. Different strokes for different people I guess

Hello,

Apologies for the late notice, but I have decided not to review this title.

While I am certain it's obvious by now, I wanted to also clear this off NetGalley, so it's not showing as open for either of us.

I look forward to continuing to work with you in 2023 and beyond.

Laura

I enjoyed this book in some ways but I really didn't like Hunter. The few L J Shen books I've read her male characters are all alpha holes but do have some redeeming qualities and really come through at the end. Hunter did have a few good moments and a few comical ones but I just found him very unlikeable the whole way through even at the big grand gesture he was still a it of a tool. The character definitely felt older than they were supposed to be. The story was quite over the top in places but I did enjoy some of the suspense elements of the story. Not my fav book by this author but it won't deter me from reading more by her

New series starts with bang.
Hunter Fitzpatrick is a 19 year old, billionaire heir to Royal Pipeline and already called a manwhore, a playboy, a womanizer. To top his reputation, he is a star of a sex tape. His father couldn’t tolerate his son’s behavior in west cost and costing their company reputation, he brings him to Boston. He made an ultimatum if Hunter is to get his inheritance. For next 6 months, he will need to work at Royal pipeline, going to school and celibate under supervision of Sailor Brennan.
Sailor (Daughter of Sparrow and Troy) is an archer who wants to go to olympic. She is feisty, independent and witty yet insecure about her face and body features. She is happy training and staying home with her lovely family. When she was offered a sponsorship, she couldn’t be happier except she will need to supervise Hunter, the handsome, troublemaker.
Hunter and Sailor start as enemy but as they get to know each other, they fall but their own insecurities and circumstances gets in the way. They will need to let go some of their fears and move forward. Both don’t give in easily.
This one was less angst than other books by LJ Shen. She knows how to write a hero we all love to hate at first but learn to love him by the end. I enjoyed it. I can’t wait read about next one.
Thanks to netgalley and author for ARC.

Not really a fan of Hunter per say but the book is better than I had expected in all sense. An enemies to lovers romance that will not dissapoint.

This book was over the top. I liked the overall story but I didn't like the characters. Hunter was just so sex obsessed that all his innuendos became annoying. I also felt the characters should have been a few years older. Sailor and Hunter were both in their teens and that felt a bit icky for me.

A steamy book set in the bright city. Sailor and Hunter couldn't be more opposite... but when forced to spend time together maybe opposites attract.

Horny, out of control, rich playboy that needs to be reigned in & super serious, dedicated, focused girl that needs to loosen up and live a little. Calling them complete and total opposites would be severely understating it. Force them together in a contract relationship that is more like a babysitting situation and you have yourself a funny, sweet, and sexy adventure!
Great read!!

Initial reaction: First and last L.J. Shen book that I'll ever read. We'll talk about all the issues I had with this book in the extended review, but there's a lot to unpack here. In the end, I did not care either about Hunter or Sailor, I did not care for the racist, sexist and homophobic microaggressions that were continuously peppered through this narrative, and when you're reading a romance and literally could not care less about the characters involved (ANY of them for that matter), that's a bad sign. Review to come.

Full review:

Okay, let me level with you a bit before I dive fully into my review of "The Hunter" by L.J. Shen. New Adult, specifically romance, has been something that I've had to take a break from for a while because of reading narratives that legit burned me out. For me, it's not that I'm opposed to reading about unlikable characters or the dynamics of tough issues that often these stories have. There's a difference between portraying narratives about characters who are terrible to each other in the vein of a story, and doing a piss-poor job of portraying characters who also happen to be terrible. Done masterfully, the former can still be a fulfilling read. I have no problems reading about terrible characters falling in love and finding their happy. Depends on how much you get me to care.

I have no patience for the latter in that dynamic though. Especially when you fill it with excessive "noise" that throws me out of the story. Regardless of how the story may rebound after that point, if you lose me, you lose me. When talking about "The Hunter" in particular, I had no expectations of L.J. Shen because while I know she's a popular author in NA, I haven't read her work before this. I knew to set my expectations low because a lot of people said straight up "This isn't her strongest work, read other works of hers if you want to have a handle on what she does."

After this, I don't think I want to bother. This was a pretty terrible experience, for more reasons than one. The bare bones of this story was something that I was very interested in, and I really like the cover. I knew going in this was going to be about two, very well-to-do, seemingly spoiled older teens. Spoiled rich 19-year old inheritor of a major oil dynasty has a sex-tape scandal (they don't tell you in the blurb that it may possibly be non-consensual) and has to lay low with a forced PR living arrangement with an 18-year old archer prodigy vying for the Olympics.

People may roll their eyes at the names for the main characters (Hunter and Sailor) and the side-characters' names as well, but let's focus on what this narrative isn't doing right with respect to the story on the base level of things, taking aside the racism, sexism/misogyny, and homophobia microaggressions peppered through the narrative (we'll talk about that later, because that's its own section).

This felt like a cookie cutter, trope-filled New Adult romance that was very boring and tedious to get through. Shen's writing does not carry the narrative well at all here, I legit do not think this was well written at all. You could trace the plot points and conflict in a wash, rinse, cycle repeat motion as it moved through the story. The characters are static and hollow apart from how they try to one up each other with the insults. The family/support characters are just as stale. There's not much to really compel you to want to follow them apart from their ability to insult each other - it's not a true power dynamic with stakes as much as it feels like a hollow shell of one. The emotional connection between both Hunter and Sailor at best was mostly a matter of convenience - I didn't feel like they had any true sexual chemistry or tension between them. You can repeat as many times as you want in narrative prose that you think a character is "hot" or "good" or any number of appealing qualities, but if I as a reader don't see or feel that in the narrative, it's not going to work. Even the sex scenes in here, despite how graphic they were, lacked any kind of passion or investment that I could feel between these two characters. It simply wasn't there.

There were attempts made to try to develop the characters, particularly Hunter and Sailor, with respect to their terrible families and the way their upbringing and circumstances weigh against them, but it comes so late in the narrative that doesn't feel like it pays off for how much you wade through to get to that point. I would also note how this stretches a lot with respect to the references to pop culture that are heavily referenced through this work. It feels like a haphazard spattering of things that feel older than the characters depicted here - some do work fine while others don't. It dated itself rather quickly. If those references had more weight and intimacy to the characters themselves, I might have given it a pass, but I could tell that, even for the age range that NA tends to be (18-30), some of the references feel even older than what would be appropriate for both the characters AND the age group this narrative is targeted towards.

That's the bare bones of what this narrative doesn't do. Let me talk about the "noise" or the numerous microaggressions that this work had to offer to try to push it through - for humor, for development, for other reasons Shen chose to shape her narrative. There are many reasons why this doesn't work. There were deliberate narrative choices here that were made that didn't have to be. You could take all of them out and manage not to be offensive to a multitude of groups that were depicted in negative or stereotypical lights here, but then that would have unmasked the obvious lack of development and plot details this story had to offer. (Though, that didn't save it from being tedious still.)

Shen could have left out the fact that Hunter was under investigation for non-consensual sexual encounters in the first chapter. Like it wasn't just the fact it was a sex-tape scandal, it was that there were potential victims that were involved that were suing for that encounter. Could have left out the fact that his father, an oil tycoon, had to offer a paid settlement to said victims to cover up the scandal and have an NDA. Could have left out the fact that Hunter didn't give a shit about any of it and was cavalier about the whole thing. But instead there was a choice to double down on all of this to let the reader know he's a shitty human being. (That's how I knew the hero of this novel and I wouldn't ultimately get along, through the entire story. But there's more to it than that.)

Shen could have left out the parts where Hunter judges Sailor for "possibly being a lesbian" before he meets her. He claims that he has no problem with that but with the number of times that her body and form are referred to in a way that's clearly pejorative, it was a choice. There was also a certain bar scene where both Hunter and Sailor are subjected to a guy's continuous remarks that are quite homophobic and sexually denouncing. It's not made better by the fact that Hunter beats the guy up, despite supposedly never having fought before. It's not made better that he keeps a piece of the guy's bloody clothing as a souvenir to show his love for Sailor. (That part grossed me out.)

Shen could have left out the numerous times our hero and heroine both insult each other by the sum of their body parts. Too small of boobs, too big of a dick, being a "walking STD", judging a woman's attractiveness by her "lips that looked like an neatly shaved vagina" (if I have to have that seared into my brain, so do you.) All of that was a choice. At a certain point, this was what contributed to the "wash, rinse, cycle, repeat" of the narrative because it was just constantly going between Hunter and Sailor and when you note even the parents make sexually derogatory remarks about their own children (!), it's a problem. It's a choice and a problem. I was beyond tired of having to read and wade through that crap.

Shen could have left out the numerous times Hunter violated Sailor's personal space and wishes. Could have left out the fact he hacked her phone, called her "Carrot Top" against her will, could have left out the fact Hunter saw Sailor naked and sexualized her, down to the color of her pubes, when she was clearly in pain from a musculoskeletal injury associated with her archery. To me, this among other fixations were a low blow and utterly disgusting.

Shen could have left out numerous anti-Black and anti-Asian microaggressions in this story. And, dear Lord, I could talk about that for days through quotes in this narrative and representation of certain characters alone. The thing about microaggressions is that they're not necessarily overt, they're implied, numerous, and harm with the collection of them. And it wasn't lost on me that we have at least two Asian characters who are stereotyped. One (male) who is Korean-British who speaks in broken English, is Sailor's instructor, and is often undermined deliberately in expertise and reduced to being the character that doesn't approve of Hunter among several of the other characters. The other (female) is non-descript Asian who is a food delivery person and reduced to a sexual fetish and someone who is the ire of Sailor for the attention Hunter gives her. I just...it's a lot.

I didn't sign up for this at all. I just wanted to enjoy seeing two people fall in love and have a romance I could root for, maybe even feel for despite being enemies to lovers or even being a couple that I may not like, but at least get to see why they're into each other. But this isn't even enemies to lovers, its casual and deliberate cruelty. It was a choice. If this is what I have to expect from and endure from Shen's work, even if this is one of her weaker stories, then I'm sorry, but it's a "No, thank you." My journey stops here with this author, I'm done.

Overall score: 0/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley from the publisher.

I have realized that as I progress further and further into my decrepit old age, that I have very little patience for emotionally immature, culturally incompetent, man-babies masquerading as "bad boys" who suddenly realize that their romantic (dis)interest is "different than other girls."

Even in fiction, I can't suspend disbelief enough to even potentially consider that there was a tiny glimmer of anything good in this person that did not make me want to call the police immediately. He made my skin crawl and made me Google "how much oxygen is truly being wasted by men breathing."

However, this is Shen's typical hero, so if you are into that, then you won't be disappointed with this series. It just is not my preference.

I DNFed at about 40%
NetGalley gave me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review.

This was just not the book for me. I am not a huge fan of darker romances and this was it. It was well written but just not my cup of tea.

This was not for me. The behavior of the main characters was a huge turn off.
But I do give credit to this author for writing a book as it is a huge feat.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book! The title and this beautiful cover drew me in and i was excited to read this book! I will be recommending this book to others for readers advisory.

This book was interesting honestly. I loved the hate to love romance, I liked the uniqueness of the main female character, and I liked the complicated backgrounds of the characters. I honestly wasn't sure how I would like this book, but it really surprised me. I've seen both hit or miss reviews of Shen, so I didn't really go into this book with high expectations; but I really enjoyed this one and I am planning on continuing with the series. I thought the sex tape portion was really funny, and I thought it was funny that he had to like abstain from sex for a while. I thought that added really funny commentary over the whole book. And I thought it was really cool that Sailor was competing in archery! I haven't read a book about someone doing archery for a sport so this was fun and unique!

I already knew I wouldn't like this the moment I read the 1st chapter.

Anyway, thank you NetGalley and the publisher for letting me review this book.

So back to it, I didn't like. I HATED IT.

I don't have anything good to say about this book tbh. If you don't like:

assht hero, don't read this
boring heroine, don't read this
excrutiatingly painful to read writing, don't read this

I enjoyed this banter filled romp filled with some of my favorite tropes with a side of bad boy Bostonian Irishman vibes, plus a badass Merida type. Add a little mystery and a big reveal and you get the whole package! Loved Hunter and Sailor!

The Hunter
An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
by L.J. Shen

I received an e-arc of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I have not read all of LJ Shens books but I have read 12 of them. She’s coined the phrase “hothole” to describe her hero’s (anti-hero’s?) in several books and the name could not be more apt.

They’re generally bad boys (hot ones). In the young adult though sometimes slightly older range. To my mind Hunter the hero (anti-hero?) of this book is the most cinnamon roll of any I’ve read. Which is fine by me somehow I love them all. She writes these males who are perceived as arrogant, unfeeling and often cruel but it’s because they are emotionally scarred by their soul torturing tragic back stories. So if you hadn’t guessed these are high drama, high stakes contemporary romances. For me personally the elements are so far beyond anything in my reality that my character empathy is engaged but not stressed out because there’s an element of unreality (to me). Which is not to say that elements of these books could not be relatable to other readers therefore just assume - like a lot of triggers.
And very open door high steam. Read other books if you don’t want steam. Like the most decadent dessert these are so so delicious.

For this book we have Hunter a “playboy” from a rich business type Boston family who is in hot water for partying much too hard. It is determined he requires babysitting by Sailor the kind and straight laced no nonsense daughter of a mob boss and also Olympic level archer who needs a sponsor in exchange for her warden duties.

Forced proximity adventures and chemistry ensue. If you’re intrigued at all just read it and then read the rest of the books. This is the first in the Boston Belles series which is my favorite so far. The ladies are all so feisty and self possessed.
I have also listened to this audiobook and many of her other audiobooks and the narration is always top notch.
5/5

I tried multiple times to get past the 5% mark and I just cant do it. This book is just not for me. The opening scene is slightly confusing and gross. Having a character referencing his "neatly trimmed pubes" is just sort of weird. And then having all these guys show up while our "hero" is trying to rekindle a threesome...gross.

Hunter has just been woken up from a bender where a sex tape was leaked, we have all been there don't judge.  And in order to not be disowned he has to be babysat by a friend of the family's daughter. Just kidding it's a mob bosses nerdy Olympic hopeful in archery, daughter. 
I don't think I have ever read a more horny character than Hunter, he was very shocking lol but also hilarious. I am not sure if...  I can't remember her name cause he either called her a Irish endearment or Carrot Top. Oh yes Sailor lol, oops, I am not sure if she knew what hit her when she moved in with him since he had the looks of an archangel. Why are archangels all hot? Must look into that.
Hunter was trying to prove himself not the black sheep and complete f- up of the family, he's only 19 lol. Sailor was in competition with a much more glamorous, successful girl that had a beef with her for the Olympic spot. So she was very focused on training despite her health. I loved watching Hunter turn from a Playboy to a potential partner. Lol wow that epilogue I would die if my husband did that to me lol.

Thank you netgalley and the author for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐💫