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A review by toggle_fow
Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson
3.0
Well. Hm. Here we are.
Not totally sure what to make of this one.
It's the story of Yumi, a girl living a narrowly-defined life of strict ritual purity so that she can call the spirits for her people. It's also story of Painter, a young man working the important but fairly blue-collar job of defending his city from walking nightmares.
Yumi and Painter's destinies are entwined, very literally, when they find themselves astrally projected into each other's bodies, living each other's lives while the other is forced to tag along as a ghost. This concept is interesting enough, and I was ready to see where the story went. Only, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
Yumi and Painter's destinies are entwined, SURELY? Like, there's clearly something going on here. But at first neither one seemed to have a destiny at all. Sure, Painter saw some kind of stable nightmare. That's not going to matter until 2/3 of the book, though, I guess. Sure, the spirits cried out to Yumi for help. But we can just hang around living each other's lives, arguing, and sharing baths.
There's a lot of sharing baths.
I said at like 35% that this is the most weirdly horny Sanderson book I've ever encountered. And it is. Yumi and Painter spend a lot of time awkwardly pretending they're not looking at each other naked or thinking about each other naked, and blushing. There are like 5+ versions of the same "sharing a bath" scene. Given that it's still a Sanderson book, it's not like there's anything actually inappropriate mentioned, and there's also no real romantic spark.
The pace of the plot is quite slow. Yumi and Painter spend a solid half of the book repeatedly visiting each other's worlds and teaching each other their various forms of art. It's self-exploratory for Yumi, finally getting to break out of her extremely structured life. For Painter, he mostly gets lectured by Yumi and takes a lot of baths.
The aesthetics of both of their worlds are vibrant and on point. Painter lives in a spiritpunk city enveloped in total darkness, except for lines of neon energy that run down every street and power all the technology. Yumi lives in a fantasy world where the ground gives off scorching heat and all the plants and flowers float. Both are intriguing and easy to picture. The art is beautiful as well.
I was interested once the plot actually kicked off. The twist and resolution had my attention. It just came a lot later than I would have wished, honestly. I read the whole thing quickly without much trouble, but I also could have easily set it down most of the way through without experiencing a particularly strong desire to pick it up again.
The afterword describing this as an anime book explained a lot. It definitely is an anime book.
Not totally sure what to make of this one.
It's the story of Yumi, a girl living a narrowly-defined life of strict ritual purity so that she can call the spirits for her people. It's also story of Painter, a young man working the important but fairly blue-collar job of defending his city from walking nightmares.
Yumi and Painter's destinies are entwined, very literally, when they find themselves astrally projected into each other's bodies, living each other's lives while the other is forced to tag along as a ghost. This concept is interesting enough, and I was ready to see where the story went. Only, it didn't seem to go anywhere.
Yumi and Painter's destinies are entwined, SURELY? Like, there's clearly something going on here. But at first neither one seemed to have a destiny at all. Sure, Painter saw some kind of stable nightmare. That's not going to matter until 2/3 of the book, though, I guess. Sure, the spirits cried out to Yumi for help. But we can just hang around living each other's lives, arguing, and sharing baths.
There's a lot of sharing baths.
I said at like 35% that this is the most weirdly horny Sanderson book I've ever encountered. And it is. Yumi and Painter spend a lot of time awkwardly pretending they're not looking at each other naked or thinking about each other naked, and blushing. There are like 5+ versions of the same "sharing a bath" scene. Given that it's still a Sanderson book, it's not like there's anything actually inappropriate mentioned, and there's also no real romantic spark.
The pace of the plot is quite slow. Yumi and Painter spend a solid half of the book repeatedly visiting each other's worlds and teaching each other their various forms of art. It's self-exploratory for Yumi, finally getting to break out of her extremely structured life. For Painter, he mostly gets lectured by Yumi and takes a lot of baths.
The aesthetics of both of their worlds are vibrant and on point. Painter lives in a spiritpunk city enveloped in total darkness, except for lines of neon energy that run down every street and power all the technology. Yumi lives in a fantasy world where the ground gives off scorching heat and all the plants and flowers float. Both are intriguing and easy to picture. The art is beautiful as well.
I was interested once the plot actually kicked off. The twist and resolution had my attention. It just came a lot later than I would have wished, honestly. I read the whole thing quickly without much trouble, but I also could have easily set it down most of the way through without experiencing a particularly strong desire to pick it up again.
The afterword describing this as an anime book explained a lot. It definitely is an anime book.