Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson – Review

Published: July 1, 2023

Publisher: Dragonsteel Entertainment

Series: The Cosmere

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 479 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis:
#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us a gripping story set in the Cosmere universe told by Hoid, where two people from incredibly different worlds must compromise and work together to save their worlds from ruin.

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each other’s communities from certain disaster?

---

This is probably my favorite title of all the secret project novels and thus I was looking forward to finding out who Yumi was and why someone would paint nightmares. Don’t get me wrong, all the secret project novels have intriguing titles, but this one really appealed to me! Dare I say, I wasn’t actually blown away by this one at the beginning but I liked it much more by the end!

We are introduced in turns to Yumi and Nikaro, who is often called simply Painter. Yumi is a yoki-hijo, or a priestess of sorts, who creates beautiful rock stacks that draw spirits to her so that she might convince them to do useful things. Nikaro is our nightmare painter and he lives in a city surrounded by darkness, cut only by bright aqua and magenta lines that power everything in the city. Each night he patrols the outer reaches and fends off nightmares that feed on people’s feelings by painting them. Our two characters are none too happy with their lives and after Yumi encounters a spirit begging for help, the two find themselves spiritually linked. In an odd version of Freaky Friday, Nikaro wakes up in Yumi’s world looking like her while Yumi is merely a spirit only he can see. As soon as Nikaro falls asleep, he goes back to his world but he’s the spirit and Yumi is a female version of him. Humorous shenanigans ensue as each tries to figure out how to navigate the other’s world and cover for absences and Nikaro’s utter lack of rock-stacking ability. 

I really, really didn’t like Nikaro at first. He comes across so intentionally as a too cool, lone-wolf figure and when he meets Yumi he immediately lies to her. Like, I got neckbeard vibes from him and it was the worst. He does get more tolerable as the story goes, but I never truly liked him because he just kind of sucks, especially when you figure out why he doesn’t have friends. Yumi on the other hand is delightful! Once she goes to Nikaro’s world she has this sudden freedom and while it’s kind of scary, she embraces it. She hangs out with the other painters, she gets new clothes, she tries noodles, and watches tv dramas. She also gives Nikaro the appropriate amount of grief for lying to her and she’s an absolute hard ass when it comes to training him to do her rock stacking art. 

The settings are quite cool as well – Brandon Sanderson said Yumi’s world was inspired by historical Korea while Nikaro’s was inspired by modern Japan. Also, did I mention that Yumi’s world is toasty warm thanks to heat radiating from the ground and has floating plants? Sanderson also said that Final Fantasy X, a game that I LOVE, was a major source of inspiration and I can definitely see some of that in Yumi’s role as yoki-hijo and the sudden appearance into a brand new world. 

I had a good time with this story overall, though I found Hoid’s narration to be a little too cheeky when it came to some of the explanations. Also, shout out to Design, who is a total, unapologetic weirdo and you’ll see precisely why when you read the book! These books are making me feel like I need to brush up on my Cosmere lore, though they can absolutely be read with little to no knowledge of the major Cosmere series like Mistborn or Stormlight Archive.