Review : As I Am by Melissa Collins

Title : As I Am by Melissa Collins
Genre(s) : Contemporary gay romance, LGBTQ+
Publication Date : April 23rd 2018
My Rating(s) : 3/5 Stars

Chase Hansen. Broke. College drop out. Male stripper.

My life wasn't at all what I imagined it would be. I should have been finishing up college, interning with a well-respected business, partying with my friends. But instead, I was raising my seventeen year old brother, struggling to make ends meet. Love wasn't even on my radar. Besides, what did I have to offer? A few crumpled singles pulled from my G-string? Defeated and exhausted, I knew I had zero chance of finding someone to love me just as I am.

Noah Carpenter. Angry. Betrayed. Doctor.

Just when I thought my life was going exactly as it should, everything turned upside down. With my final rotation in medical school complete, I finally achieved my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor. What I never expected was to catch the man of my dreams in our bed with the man of his. Beyond infuriated, I struggled to piece together the remnants of my life. Just when I'd decided to give up on love altogether, I found a man who loved me just as I am.

Well, here's another example for not trusting the Five Stars review. Even when I wrote a five stars review I never asked people to believe it too. Only trust your feeling before choosing a new book to read and never put the expectations too high if you don't wanna ended with huge disappointed.

The blurb gave me the strong impression that the story will gonna be something, add the gorgeous cover to it and I decided to devour this book right away.
I've seen another author promoting this book massively and that made me itch to read some review that almost all give the book good praise with 5 glistening stars.

But my eyes then stumbled to the 1 and 2 stars review that caught my curiosity. Hmm, interesting…

FYI, I’m not that typical reader who read reviews before starting a new book, I mostly choose a book first – by its cover and then the blurb. And if that two makes me curious enough, I usually read it and not even care about what others said in their review. And if I’m in the mood read the review, I will automatically search and interested in what the lowest rating reviewers said about the book, because they usually not biased and said the truth.

Well, according to the blurb, this book actually come with an interesting premise. A male striper and a doctor ? My brain automatically scream with full anticipation and I was so excited to read it. I must admit that I do like some part of this book. I can feel the chemistry between the two MC very well, the plot was quite good and the writing was fine. There are some scenes that almost brought tears to my eyes and I have sympathy for what had happened to both Chase and Noah and their struggles to move on from the tragedy that happened in their life. All that happened between the MCs and the ups and downs in their relationship has huge potential to grabbed my soft heart IF it not constantly ‘interrupted’ by immature behavior from both MC that sometimes made me rolling my eyes so many times. I need to convinced myself over and over again that both MC ages was mature enough for their age. But at some points, I finally can’t stand anymore because it’s far too annoying for me.

I feel kinda disappointed that this story has to ended far from what I’ve expected. Even the sweet things Noah did to Chase’s brother, Benny was not enough to lift up my mood...

So I think 3 stars is fair enough for me, because even it ended not as what I expected but still there’s some part that I love from this book.