amybraunauthor 's review for:

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

5.0

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Brandon Sanderson’s third secret project is a unique, entertaining adventure with vivid imagery and wholesome characters. It’s nothing like what I expected and I was thrilled to dive into this creative story. 

 

Yumi and Painter, the two main characters, are both quite different: She is a revered spiritual figure, able to speak to spirits who has been brought up under a very strict environment. He is a painter who comes against nightmares, but feels lonely in his day-to-day life. They are quite literally thrown together, and they must navigate not only their very different worlds, but different emotions and experiences, in order to figure out what is happening to the spiritual world around them. 

 

Yumi and Painter are entertaining and charming. They each have their own quirks and are almost polar opposite personalities, but they have excellent chemistry. The best parts of the book are their interactions. That’s not to say the other characters aren’t well fleshed out and fun. Everyone has a layer of depth and feel like real people. 

 

The story is a slower burn as it focuses on the growth of Yumi and Painter and their relationship, but I was always engaged and there were plenty of clues and pieces of lore to keep me guessing until the exciting climax. 

 

I’d imagine the world is going to be familiar to longtime readers of Sanderson‘s work, but I never felt lost or out of place as a new reader. It’s an engaging, fun, sweet story about two young people using art to break out of the monotony of your lives. I highly recommend it for bands of fantasy!