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Rate: 5/5

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Medium: Audiobook

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Overview (No Spoilers):

My friend recommended Tress of the Emerald Sea, by making the bold claim it might be his favorite work by Sanderson. He soon reported back that Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is even better than Tress. Having loved every word of Tress’ adventure, I obviously found this proclamation to be dubious at best. Regardless, with my curiosity piqued, I quickly found out that Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is just as good as hyped. I couldn’t put down this mysterious story filled with polar opposites, especially in light of the many uncomfortable scenes Sanderson concocts for our two protagonists.

Kilahito is a city of perpetual dark, with their planet as a whole shrouded in an all encompassing mist. In this world, Nightmares come to life, feeding on the fears of the weak until they obtain enough substance to become deadly. The only thing holding the terrors at bay are the Nightmare Painters. The dangerous, yet sought after profession enables the artist to trap the spirit of the Nightmares into paintings upon encountering them in the wild. Talk about stressful painting. Once trapped the Nightmares are rendered harmless. Lonely Nikaro leads a solitary existence as a Nightmare Painter, despite most in the profession teaming up. An air of sadness, emanating from his past permeates Nikaro, though the events that led to such ingrained melancholy remain hidden until the end.

The other half of this story follows the namesake of this novel, Yumi, whose bright chapters couldn’t be more different from Nikaro’s dark ones. Hers is a world of light and warmth, though much more technologically challenged than Kilahito. The ground on her world is thermally charged, with significant heat making it nigh impossible to walk barefoot. Yumi has spent her whole life bound by spiritual ceremony and routine as a yoki-hijo. Through these very rigid guidelines and the elaborate displays of discipline, Yumi is able to call upon spirits to power every day items to make life easier for the many villages her team visits. Her calling is an honor that weighs heavy on her young shoulders as she is never allowed a moment to herself. 

Sanderson effortlessly brings to life both of these worlds with fine brush strokes that layer the details on to an ever more complex canvas. The technology in Nikaro’s world is unique with the hion lines providing power to everything, but it was the soap operas that stole the show. However in Yumi’s world, you could practically feel the heat emanating from the pages and the ever present glow from the sun. Both of these worlds are well crafted and delightfully different. 

Hoid makes another appearance in this installment of the Year of Sanderson, however as in Tress, he seems to have been cursed, remaining a coat rack for almost the entirety of this story. This wrinkle adds its own levity, especially as he is narrating the story again. Design, Hoid’s cryptic spren, who has decided to open a noodle shop in light of Hoid’s impairment is another bright spot in the novel, adding much needed information when Yumi and Nikaro’s existences unexpectedly merge. As the two explore each other’s worlds, they help challenge the norms that they have both accepted as permanent, allowing them to evolve into the people they want to be, all the while uncovering a mystery that threatens everyone they care about.

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Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound): 

• The revelation about Nikaro lying to his friends when he didn’t make it to his dream profession was absolutely heartbreaking, especially when their own lives were depending on him making the cut. That said, the realization that the ‘dream’ profession was only ever open to the elite is both crushing and healing. How did Nikaro’s relationships with his friends change following the overwhelming stand against the horde of Nightmares and Nikaro sounding the alarm? Yumi’s exchanges with these friends were heartfelt but often so cringe inducing. 
• I loved that Yumi and Nikaro were both on Komashi the whole time, though the reality was a little more complex than that. 
• I feel like I could use a reread to understand exactly what happened. So the nightmare creatures are people from a thousand years ago who tried to trap spirits mechanically. Instead it backfired and trapped their spirits in a never ending cycle of repetition. The machine sends the Nightmares out in force when a rogue spirit comes too close to civilization and threatens the machine’s existence. 
• How did the spirit break free and be able to ask Yumi for help, which has never happened before? What was the story and who were people behind the previous city the Nightmares destroyed because of the breach?  

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