Yumi and the Nightmare Painter Full Reactions (Cosmere Edition)

[Weaver of Lies he/him]

This was an amazing book! I loved the complexity, and enjoyed that for a little bit nothing made sense, and then in a few pages Hoid clears it all up. My favorite secret project so far.

[MilkTheShark]

On 7/3/2023 at 2:01 AM, LightReader said:

As I was reading it I made the assumption that Hoid's audience this time is probably Rosharan, as most of the cosmere references he makes seem to be related to Roshar, however I will need to read again more carefully to be sure though.  I might've missed something and it's just that Design's references are to Roshar since that's where she's from. I'm curious if anyone noticed a line that specifically marks the audience of this one. He does seem to be telling the story relatively shortly after it happened considering that he assumes Painter and Yumi to still be alive at the time of storytelling. (He notes that they like off-world visitors in the present tense.)

In chapter 4 Hoid says "To Torish people, using a spirit for light was as natural --and as common-- as spheres are for you..." the audience is Rosharan

Edited July 23, 2023 by MilkTheShark
Cut down quote

[The Sibling she/her]

I loved this book! I think this is a common opinion, but this is by far my favourite of the secret projects. I really liked the differences between Yumi and Painter's world, and found the changes in setting refreshing. One issue I had was the limited color scheme in Painter's home, and for that reason I preferred Yumi's home. I also really liked the conversations about art, and I found it interesting especially since the emergence of AI. The romance aspect of the book wasn't as great to me as the worldbuilding and the characters themselves, but I have no real problems with it. Other than that, I mostly enjoyed the book. My favourite part is when Yumi changes the way the wind is blowing. I can't remember the exact quote but I found it really funny. When Yumi came back at the end I didn't love it, but I understand that for this kind of book, a happy ending made sense, and I did like the epilogue. All and all, it was pretty good!

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Aiiiiiight

I have finally finished Yumi. It only took me like two or three days, but it was still forever for me. I used to read books as big as it in a day... or as many pages in a day (*glances over at Stormlight suspiciously*)

But, enough of that, I absolutely loved this book.

The charachterization was fantastic, the world building was so much fun, the cosmere tidbits were funny (Design and Masaka were hilarious), I really, really, REALLY, liked the dialogue. I positively loved almost every aspect of the story, 'cept maybe one or two things. 

I was yelling at Brandon by the end of the book, not wanting the story to end, nor wanting the story to end at the tragedy in the last chapter. Thankfully I kept reading and got the full ending. 

Yumi reminds me so much of my cousin, the way she was like "But I want them to have a happy ending!"

Any of you guys catch the typo in the print where it says "I w-want to ccream (paraphrased)" I believe it meant "scream". But, I mean, if the girl wants some ice cream XD

Now to say what I've been avoiding. I'm turning into a romantic, I loved the romance aspect of this book to death, loving the characters together. Painter is just amazing and reminds me of a lot of different people and things in my life. Yumi too. 

I know, I know, everyone else is saying it, but...

Best Secret Project, by faaaar. 

Tress was amazing, Frugal was pretty good, but this takes the cake.

[Nitpicking]

On 7/8/2023 at 1:29 PM, StormingTexan said:

I was pretty hyped for this one after the preview chapters. It took a lot longer for me to really get in to this one compared to most of Brandon’s books. Just felt like after the first few chapters it was really slow. I think it wasn’t until chapter 29 that I was really invested. That being said the rest of the book was great.

That's one of my major complaints about this (and other recent Brandon): slow start. This (and RoW) could have stood another draft, removing 20-30% of the current word count, mostly from the beginning (but also at least two of the incredibly hard-to-read "Yumi is miserable and a fish out of water in Painter's world" scenes. We didn't need or want entire chapters of Hoid explaining things that could have been better included in the actual story (or just left out).

[Uvara]

Wow! I have just finished the book and what a read it was! 

Something that really clicked with me was the introduction of the machine and how the implications and the reactions of the people reflect something about technological progress in real life. It is a subject I have chewing on in real life a lot this year and I love that this book gave so much food for thought and questions about the positives and negatives of this, it will give me something to chew on for a while.

[Treamayne]

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1 hour ago, Awakened rock stacker said:

I was reading old WoBs recently and I found a bunch of WoBs about a Shard the is not on a planet. I was just wondering if maybe it's Virtuosity since Hoid says she splintered herself between plants, which is maybe where she was most of the time. 

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[Mat he/him]

Painter and Yumi might be my new favorite Cosmere couple, which is really saying something considering my two favorite Brandon characters are Adolin and Shallan. Something about the way he wrote their relationship just... worked so well for me. I feel like I ought to reread both to give a proper comparison, but at the moment I'd put this handily above Tress. This story was more compelling to me, the world was more interesting, and my brain was more invested in figuring out the Cosmere connections and shenanigans. And the fact that Tress more or less followed my expectations but I could not have been more wrong about where this story was going to end up.

I didn't mind the Hoid infodumps at the end, probably because I said aloud "I'm so confused" and then turned the page to read, 'Some of you are probably confused' or whatever it was  I needed an infodump or two.

I... kind of wish Yumi had stayed dead, but I understand why Brandon didn't end the story that way, and am fine with it. But the lines and setup about the sad story throughout and right at the end were so good, and mostly went unused. That being said, at the line in the Epilogue where Hoid said 'If you ever go to visit them... etc' my heart actually ached to go visit them, which I think is the first time that's happened to me in any book about any fictional character(s) in any fictional place ever, soooo yeah I think this book had an impact on me in ways I don't even realize.

I was seriously hyped about the Sleepless, I love the Sleepless and will never not get hyped about them. Philico forever!!!!

Probably other thoughts but I don't remember them. Off to listen to Shardcast...

[BaylorBreakspear]

On 7/3/2023 at 2:01 AM, LightReader said:

The Japanese and Korean Light Novel/Manga/Webtoon vibes were strong with this one. Which worked for me because I often enjoy those mediums, and also made a lot of sense once I read the postscript/afterword. I love the artwork in this one. I'd say I enjoyed the story in Tress slightly more, as it took me a bit longer to get hooked by this one, but not by much. I'll need to re-read them both to be sure. I did not see most of the twists in this one ahead of time, which was cool.

As I was reading it I made the assumption that Hoid's audience this time is probably Rosharan, as most of the cosmere references he makes seem to be related to Roshar, however I will need to read again more carefully to be sure though.  I might've missed something and it's just that Design's references are to Roshar since that's where she's from. I'm curious if anyone noticed a line that specifically marks the audience of this one. He does seem to be telling the story relatively shortly after it happened considering that he assumes Painter and Yumi to still be alive at the time of storytelling. (He notes that they like off-world visitors in the present tense.)

This book may be a clue about where Design was during the events of Tress: maybe she was just doing the same thing, living as an eccentric human in some city there, running a noodle shop or some other thing from her list of human experiences she wants to try. Design is fantastic and fabulous in every way. 

The fact that their spaceship landing on the Sho Del planet and having first contact with aliens will probably be completely overshadowed in their planet's history books by the revelation that the sun exists is kind of hilarious to me. It also made me laugh when I realized Hoid's ridiculous situation here, the protocol he set up, was most likely in response to what Taravangian did to him in the RoW epilogue. 

I think my one plot nitpick is that none of the painters at the end use their bell thingies to get more painters to come help. I suppose they were just overwhelmed and didn't have a moment to spare, but I kept waiting for someone to think of it during that last fight. They were introduced but Yumi failed to take advantage of it because of her lack of training, which made me think that the people who were trained would obviously know that it would be a good idea to get more help in that situation, especially since there were Dreamwatch painters known to be in the city, and the only painter who knew they were probably useless at that point was Painter himself. 

Also, if I am remembering correctly, and while it may be simply that Hoid is choosing to translate it this way, I found it interesting that Yumi uses the same -nimi suffix as a mark of respect (e.g. "Warden-nimi") that Szeth uses when he speaks to Nightblood, which he calls "sword-nimi" a few times.

Overall, a very enjoyable read.

Yeah about the Nimi thing being an overlap in a pretty specific linguist idiosyncrasy is highly suggest in my mind. Of what? No clue other than there's some connection within the movement of people's or linguistics due to travel across the cosmere. 

[Duxredux he/him]

I really enjoyed Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and when I have time after finishing a project and can sit and really think, I may come back and update my post concerning the aspects of YatNP that struck home from a Japanese mental culture stand point. I'm not sure if I've processed the book enough to address that well. I'll say for now, that for what has been filtered down to me as a fourth generation Japanese American, some of the mental patterns were very familiar, and I appreciate how Brandon handled them. I'll probably start a different thread for that though. I did get a minor spoiler that Your Name was an inspiration for the story, though I would have guessed that by the second chapter.

First, I appreciate that even the names Painter and Yumi are indicative of their story arcs. For Yumi who was the paragon of a yoki-hijo, someone who should not be a person, she nonetheless was Yumi. For Nikaro the supposed washout, he was Painter. What they considered themselves in their minds is who they ended up becoming, and it was appropriate for them to grow into their names.

I'm probably odd, but Liyun is a compelling character to me, though I don't intend to imitate her in any form, particularly in teaching or parenting. Liyun helped me understand some of my family members better and appreciate the good in them, though I'll expand more on that in a different thread.

I will confess, when Izzy was talking about hot aliens, I immediately assumed that she would be ecstatic to know that Kaladin exists and would make fan art that would horrify him and delight Veil, if Veil was still around. Perhaps horribly unfair on my part, but there it is.

This book felt more character driven than most of Brandon's, and I really liked how it turned out. I'm also fine with the extent that Hoid was in this book, not as an active participant, but giving commentary. Some aspect of Hoid as narrator reduced the mental citations that I have started tagging everything (for lack of a better term) whenever anyone in-story makes a conclusion about the magic system - because odds are it's probably only partial accurate if accurate at all. Pretty much a hallmark of Brandon's writing is that characters make inaccurate assumptions about how the magic really works. However, I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that if Hoid says that something works the way it does, then probably only a Shard might be a higher authority on the matter and not even then. For other people having Hoid be the narrator probably detracted a bit from how the romance played out, but for me it allowed me to let go of my mental cataloguing with citations.

All in all, a book I highly enjoyed and anticipate rereading for decades to come

[Stigmadiabolicum]

On 7/2/2023 at 1:02 PM, Awakened rock stacker said:

I loved the book mostly because of the hunting of nightmares aspect which really reminded me of shadows for silence in the forests of hell where silence is hunting for bounties and following the horse's glowing urine and here the painters flloe the  nightmares which  leave bits of black essence in some place. also, the noodle shop reminded me of the way stop that silence runs.also the shroud and the evil sound pretty similar as do the sides and the nightmares basically threndoy vibes.

Just wondering if anybody felt this?

Threnody vibes for sure, and shes basically part Returned part Shade, then Heralds herself physical form at the end with his connection haha. Their whole situation is an awesome blend of everything, splintered god like the Dor and elantris, threnody like shades, fused-adjacent scholars. Also "awakened" device, not sure if wob confirms this is native virtuosity tech using their own mechanics or if we're nearer to tress and they started with Nalthis tech like the translator, either way a hacked Bondsmith device is insanely powerul even if it turned out like Nightblood (funny how both powerful quasi sentient investiture creations just swallow souls)

The biggest thing i noticed was descriptions of the nightmares is identical to Sja Anat, shadow with pinpricks of white.

Honestly it was nice to see Hoid casually chat about Todium memory jacking him, both glad he eventually noticed (or design pieced it together) and that it wasnt damaging. Id love if if his adventures on the spore seas was right after this, like being stuck as a coat rack made him willing to take the bet to finally become Elantrian and be able to stop getting interfered with haha. Ironically in that adventure it's kind of reversed since design was just in the kandras desk the whole time.

But yeah, he absolutely suceeded in capturing similar vibes to FFX, even has a straight up Zanarkand dream city kept alive by spirits haha. He did a good job incorprating realmatics in a way that builds on it but also eases into it for newer people. 

I loved their training, my only real nitpick is she never got to do much nightmare painting. 

I really loved the hion line technology, incredibly vivid blend of fabrial adjacent tech mixed with southern scadrian style devices. 

Thats the second mention of sho del after the reveal in Lost Metal, like aethers he's finally seeding in the oldest lore, though if you arent a cosmere scholar itll be totally random haha.

We wont get any info on virtuosity until dragonsteel 2 decades from now, but I'm just going with splintering being the final and ultimate artistic expression, following its intent.

[alder24]

I've just finished Yumi and my mind is blown. This certainly is my favorite secret project so far and one of the best in Cosmere. It was really great. The story was focused only on Yumi and Nikaro and their relationship and I love every page of it. Their romance is the best of all of Brandon's books. I think we need more stories like this, focused heavily on characters, on a much smaller scale without Shards clashing or whole worlds at stakes. The worldbuilding of this world (two worlds, but really one) was inspiring and very interesting, big Threnody vibes. I'm also glad that Hoid was in the background (literally just standing there) in this story compared to Tress, more of him (mostly in the form of interruptions to say things outside of the story or about himself) would just distract from Yumi and Nikaro and damage the story. Design on the other hand was fantastic, I love her even more. And the graphics were great too, I caught myself staring at some images for minutes, they were so beautiful.

And I'm so glad that Yumi didn't stay dead. That wouldn't make sense - she was more invested than Returned or Elantrian, she could resist the pull into the Beyond if she wanted - her death would ruin her character arc as it would mean she would have chosen her duty over herself. And they definitely deserve to finally touch each other.

The Sanderlanche got confusing really fast. It went from 0 to 100. Even with Hoid's explanation I was barely following. If Awakening wasn't scary before with Nightblood, now it is and it can consume the entire planet's population just like that. While I'm still not sure if that machine was Awakened with Breaths (were those scientists worldhoppers?), it was called Awakened so it definitely can be done with Breaths. You don't need sentient Nightblood, just some machine for stacking stones is enough to end a world. That's really scary. 

And a Fain planet full of Sho Del. That was a plot twist. Huge, I started screaming in the middle of the night! And then nothing more about it! Brandon, you can't do that without giving us anything more about their first contact! Just give us anything more! I hope we will get more of them in the future.

Not only Sho Del appeared but also the Sleepless! Masaka is the 60th horde. That's a lot of Sleepless compared to Roshar (I doubt they're from Roshar). And she had learnt how to make her face from one hordeling/piece. This will make recognising Sleepless so much harder and even distinguishing them between Kandra and Spren will be harder as well. But that's good. We already know how to recognise them, this will make it challenging in the future.

But this machine still confuses me. How it didn't consume everybody on the planet? Why did those nomads or future Kilahitans survive? Why was Hoid affected by it and they weren't'??? Why didn't this machine just use the shroud to power itself when Yumi took away all spirits? Why didn't the spirit run out of investiture as the machine was feeding on it? They should eventually lose it all and stop existing.

This time the audience and timeline is pretty obvious. Rosharans are mentioned almost directly, and it's in the space era. There is even a nearby Scadrial space station, which is interesting. What are they doing there? But I also wonder, Hoid mentioned a lot of Earthly objects without explanation.T his either means that Roshar magi-tech will develop similar common devices to Scadrial's or the trade between Scadrial and Roshar will grow and those will be brought on Roshar this way (which means there aren't that hostile as I thought). 

Also I've almost forgotten - Hoid mentioned, when introducing Design, that "It wasn’t an actual body—we all kind of learned our lesson on that" - that's clearly referencing Ishar's experiments. Either you can't grant a spren their physical body this way, it it will end even worse than what we've seen so far. This is concerning.

I want to watch anime now.

[TheTuninator]

This might be my all-time favorite Cosmere book, but if it isn't, it's certainly up there. I'm a sucker for more character-focused, smaller-scale stuff, and this hit the sweet spot. It's certainly by far his best romance, and it was very cool to see Brandon stretching some authorial muscles that he doesn't usually use as much. I can see why he talked this one up a bit more than the others in advance, and why the Dragonsteel crew liked it so much.

The mental image of Painter's friends seeing him kissing his "sister" is sooo funny. That must have been a tough one for Painter and Yumi to explain to everyone!

[Stormlit Shard he/him]

I might be a little late on this topic but this turned out to be one of my favorite cosmere books. All Sanderson books are amazing but I wasn't bored with any part of this book and couldn't put it down, unlike during some of Shallan's chapters at the very beginning of Stormlight. I really enjoy the character building and finding out Painter's backstory. I really enjoyed that Yumi didn't die at the end but it kind of undermined her sacrifice. It could have been a better ending if along with Yumi some of the other Torish people survived but I'm not sure how Brandon could have made that one work. One of my favorite things was seeing what Painter and Yumi thought about each other's world, like Yumi with the Dramas and Noodle shops as well as Painter with the heat from the ground and flying trees.

Also, the magic system was awesome and brand new full of real nightmares of being defeated by Painters! I would never have been able to come up with that. The story also had amazing and creative world-building when scholars just tried to make energy for their people, and then it ended making their planet thrown into an endless night made up of ancient souls lasting thousands of years.

But it would have been awesome to find out the astronauts' crazy reactions when they look back at their home world and find the Shroud completely gone.

Overall this is an amazing book and is definitely one of my favorite Sanderson books so far.

Edited August 31, 2023 by Stormlit Shard
Needed to add one thing more

[clowncarcrash]

I loved it. A lot of teenage cringe and romance. Really cool worldbuilding. One really unexplored aspect that I thought was quite interesting, that I wish Brandon but especially Wit to explore, is HOW IMPORTANT Stories are to people. Yeah Yumi is sheltered, but I feel her severance from culture and stories makes her life experience so limited. Yumi would benefit from the stories since she gets to experience multiple lives and learn how society really works. Even if she's this captive bird in a cage she'd have that escape and perspective.

I don't think that was the main part or main theme of the story but thats a character beat I really found fascinating and wish that was explored.

[Ishar]

I just can't get over the fact that Hoid basically just said "I was there. I was the coat rack." to explain how he knew the story.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Ishar

[InvestedDragonLJ]

I finished YatNP after having only a little more then a day. It might be one of my favorite stand alone books ever. Not just by Brandon Sanderson. 
 

First we got to see Brandon build not just one but two worlds that seem as different as night and day (pun intended). I love the Japanese and Korean basis for which the worlds were built and found the little calls to cultural amazing. 
 

Second, Hoid. Any book narrated by Hoid is a win in my book. I love his random interjections and almost erratic narrating style, plus the fact that he was a coat rack made my day. 

Third, the interactions between Yumi and Painter were really well done for an author that doesn’t often write romance. The carnival scene especial felt really well done to me with it seeming like a twist on the classic carnival date.

Last big point, the Stormlight references really were just the icing on the cake for this book. I am so excited to see how patterns attitude in this story compares to other spren in SA5.

Overall, definitely one of my favorite Brandon Sanderson books.

[Duxredux he/him]

On 10/5/2023 at 8:41 AM, Ishar said:

I just can't get over the fact that Hoid basically just said "I was there. I was the coat rack." to explain how he knew the story.

So... this?

[Scarletfox]

I know that I'm late to this party, but I just finished Yumi, and oh my goodness was it a ride. Words cannot describe the emotions flowing through my body. This book has forced me to return to this forum after over a year and a half hiatus because it was so gosh darn wonderful.

Yumi = amazing

Painter = amazing

Their romance was adorable and their interactions amazing. Reading it felt like a twist dystopia - like it was a dystopian society that had appeared somehow SO NORMAL to me the whole time I was reading I had no idea that something was so incredibly off.

[Ookla she/her]

I'll be honest, when I started Yumi I was extremely worried about the body-swapping element, because I've never liked that trope. In the stories I'd seen it used before Yumi, it always felt awkward and dumb and honestly kind of pointless.

Then I got into it. And yeah, the body-swapping brought in some of the awkward/dumb stuff that I hate in other body-swap stories, but in this one I feel like Sanderson pulled it off really well. I appreciate the fact that Yumi and Painter got to see and meet and talk to the person who took over their body, and I like that they got to teach each other their way of life instead of each having to blunder through until they got it right. That part, I found extremely refreshing.

Also, the romance!!! I normally hate romance (primarily due to exposure to far too many Hallmark movies), but this one makes me so happy! I'd put this book on par with Warbreaker on my list of Brandon's Most Beautifully Written Books. Yumi and Painter just... fit. And granted, I did plenty of mental yelling at Painter for being a prideful, arrogant idiot upon first awakening in Yumi's 'world', but once he figured his crap out and started putting that stuff aside, I could honestly say I really liked both characters.

Some people have commented about Hoid's narrative style in this one, and personally, I like it. I think the fourth-wall-breaking is kind of fun, and totally in character for Hoid. The explanations of the world-building, while not the textbook "Right Way" to do exposition, were all quite entertaining, and I actually looked forward to them in between the bits of story.

And then Design.  I like Design in this one; she's made a lot of progress since her story-interruptions in RoW.