Review: Glass Half Full by Katia Rose (Barflies #2)

You win some, you lose some.

Back at home with half a college degree after the fiasco of the century sent her packing, it’s safe to say that Renee Nyobé is losing some. She’s a hot mess, and not the cute kind. No, if hot messes had categories, hers would be ‘littering the stairs of the metro station with your sweaty underwear because you were too busy rushing to the job interview you’re already late for to zip up your yoga bag.’

A job—any job—is just what she needs to get her life back on track, and it might as well be at Montreal’s most famous dive bar, Taverne Toulouse.

Dylan Trottard is winning some. As Taverne Toulouse’s new manager, he’s got one rule for himself: don’t screw up. Following that rule gets a lot harder when the woman he’s spent the past three years trying to forget starts working behind the bar.

They were never supposed to want each other, and they sure as hell aren’t supposed to want each other now. She’s the girl that got away before he even had her, and he’s the guy she didn’t think would ever give her a second glance.

Now they can’t keep their eyes off one another, and the stakes are even higher than before. There’s a lot to lose, but as the pull between them gets harder and harder to ignore, Renee and Dylan start asking how much winning is worth.

*ARC received in exchange of an honest review*

Glass Half Full is book two in the Barflies series featuring the staff of Tavern Toulouse and this book is Dylan's book.

Dylan is a sweet, fun, and hard-working guy who writes spoken word poetry and has a carefully concealed chip on his shoulder about mistakes he made as a teenager that saw him serve some jail time.

Renee is about seven years younger than Dylan, another lover of spoken word poetry, who has returned home to Montreal after developing severe anxiety and essentially having a breakdown while studying in the UK.

Dylan and Renee were friends in the past and that connection shines through from the first moment of their reunion and grows stronger throughout the book.
They're both imperfectly wonderful people just trying to live the best life they can live while being a little bit lost. Throughout the book they slowly begin to find themselves, they begin to heal and they fall in love. The falling in love was not a magic bullet to cure all ills but a reason to keep fighting to be better, to move forward, and achieve all the things.

The book is packed full of emotion but the key themes of the book are healing and forgiveness.

I found that it was a bit harder to read than other books by the author as it felt so raw (and probably because the anxiety elements hit so close to home) but it was beautifully written.

If you haven't read anything by Katia Rose before, and you enjoy contemporary romances with believable characters, then you are missing out and I suggest you get right on that.