Yoshitoshi ABe

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

Essence is a story about 2 women overcoming their past to better their future. Haven and Sally open a spa and are achieving amazing success…and then they found out they are only have complete because they meet the men that complete them. A romantic story about how love fixes the worst broken hearts.

The setting of the book was fun, I just traveled to Florida right before I started reading this book and I could picture so much of it through the authors writing. I love when I read about places I have been, it allows the story to be more real for me. It did leave me craving to travel back to Florida!

My favorite character in the book was Sally’s little boy, while most of the back ground character’s didn’t jump out to me, he did. I do wonder why there wasn’t a little more about the Uncle or involving the Uncle that traveled down to help them out. He seemed to be an important character in their lives, yet there was little written about his visit to the resort.

The story line was good, but it seemed a little too wrapped around these women needing the right men to make their life complete.
… (more)

I was given this book in exchange for an honest review.

Essence is a story about 2 women overcoming their past to better their future. Haven and Sally open a spa and are achieving amazing success…and then they found out they are only have complete because they meet the men that complete them. A romantic story about how love fixes the worst broken hearts.

The setting of the book was fun, I just traveled to Florida right before I started reading this book and I could picture so much of it through the authors writing. I love when I read about places I have been, it allows the story to be more real for me. It did leave me craving to travel back to Florida!

My favorite character in the book was Sally’s little boy, while most of the back ground character’s didn’t jump out to me, he did. I do wonder why there wasn’t a little more about the Uncle or involving the Uncle that traveled down to help them out. He seemed to be an important character in their lives, yet there was little written about his visit to the resort.

The story line was good, but it seemed a little too wrapped around these women needing the right men to make their life complete.
… (more)

This wonderful art book is a treasure trove of concept art from the anime 'Haibane Renmei', ranging from rough pencil sketches to stunning full colour pieces. The text is all in Japanese, however it consists of very brief captions to each drawing, mostly quotes from the series. You can find some fan translations floating around if you look hard enough.

One of the elements that drew me to this book is that it manages to capture the peaceful, warm, almost ethereal, tone of the series. Focusing on every day scenes of the characters' lives and the world around them, it avoids the heavily descriptive and annotated style of most other art books that deal with anime series.

It's long out of print and hard to find, but if you're at all interested in the series or ABe's work you should definitely pick it up given the chance.… (more)