 The latest of Brandon Sanderson's secret projects that he wrote over the course of 2020 has just recently drummed And it is an incredibly interesting tale about two people who are bound together through supernatural events and have to help each other overcome different obstacles within their lives. I Swear this isn't just your name. Yumi and the Nightmare Painter follows the events of the eponymous Yumi and Painter Two people who, like I mentioned before, get bound together through supernatural events and have to help each other Solve one problem or another. Now, mostly this is helping Yumi out with her issues But because her and Painter keep switching back and forth, both of them end up helping each other in some capacity. Now Yumi is Yoki Hijo Someone who helps her world by talking to the spirits, summoning them, and getting them to help with farming or just general everyday life Painter, on the other hand, is a nightmare painter. He works to protect his world from nightmares Beings that coalesce from the darkness that covers his planet. Obviously early on, Yumi and Painter get bound together Now this isn't just a your name situation where they're just switching place and confused every day. Whenever Painter is in control They are on Yumi's world. With Yumi acting as a spirit to help guide Painter in what he is supposed to be doing with All the ritual and the stuff on her planet to help her issues. They are on Painter's world Yumi is the one in control and Painter is acting as the spirit to help guide her on his world So that she can become more natural and fluid and act as a human as opposed to someone who is basically Sacrifices their entire life to live in a certain way. That's the basic story of this book It's these two people who have come together through completely Unnormal circumstances who would have never interacted otherwise who are helping each other grow as humans. Painter gains a respect for Learning to take a step back and look within himself to analyze a situation to help come up with a better outcome And Yumi goes from being incredibly strict with herself and of this ritual mindset To being able to go with the flow and just enjoy life for once. This book is a hell of a lot more dramatic than Tress was and I really like that actually I think that was a really interesting way to do it especially because it allows credence and a drama to help inform These characters actions it also at least personally Helped me not feel these characters were making the dumbest possible choice that they could given their circumstance Which is a big issue that I have with stories like this This story is also a lot more romance driven than other books that Brandon has ever written Brandon Specifically wrote this book for his wife because she has been saying that she wants to see more romance within his novels I think he actually did a fantastic job writing romance I think he does it better than most other authors and I'm not a huge fan of romance books I actually think this did really well Obviously the romance wasn't necessarily the main focus, but actually getting to see a Relationship develop over the course of a book is something that I don't generally read And I thought it worked really really well here with the characters that are falling in love Now as you probably guessed based on my description at the beginning of this video This book is loosely inspired by your name Which is an incredibly good movie by Makoto Shinkai. This book is also inspired by Hikaru Ndongo A story about a boy who finds a go board possessed by a ghost who helps him learn the love of the game and He continues and becomes a master at it as well as the game Final Fantasy 10 Specifically what Brandon wanted to do was the strange jobs that the world would have that don't necessarily exist on this Well aka, you know a person that talks to and communes with the spirits and someone whose job It is to paint nightmares away from civilians. I know that's a weird description, but that is what painter does This is their work. This is what they do. It's normal for them, but to us. It's fantastical and that was a really cool thing I honestly really like those inspirations He has also said that he was inspired by both Japanese and Korean culture more specifically historical Korea for Yumi's world and a little more modern-day Japan for painters and I love both of those settings So much so I've talked in the past about how I'm a massive fan of anime and honestly just a lot of different cultural stuff In general, but also one thing that I really like is seeing non European fantasy world settings while they can be cool It gets a little boring after a while, you know So getting to see a book where the setting wasn't a European based culture And it was more Japanese inspired was really really cool And I want to see more books do that if you don't have any more books that do this Please let me know in the comments so that I can read them personally. I Absolutely adored this book. It is super entertaining I loved the interactions between both Yumi and painter especially when they are trying to help each other navigate their Personal societies the relationships that form between the different characters of the book are also really really well done And on top of this book being super fun It is one of the few books that I think you actually kind of lose something by listening to the audiobook only I very often listen to audiobooks mostly because it's really easy to listen to them in my day-to-day life And while I'm going about doing my normal everyday activities, but with this specific book the artwork in it is fucking phenomenal if I don't get slammed with seasoned assists here are a couple of examples of the artwork in this book it Looks gorgeous, and I think something was lost just having it described But you do listen to the audiobook. I highly implore you to look up and find the art of this book. It is Fantastic it looks phenomenal, and it all fits the world really well But all of that said that the story of the book the characters all of that for me I'd say that this book rolls a 17 this book is Phenomenally all written not necessarily my favorite type of book But it's still incredibly well done Sanderson has a gift with words and an incredible style of writing and personally I cannot wait for the fourth secret project book to come out and I get to go over that But that is all that I have for now I hope you all enjoyed this video if you'd like to follow me on any of my socials Thanks to all of those are going to be in the description down below But with that being said I'll be off a fantastic day, and we'll see you all in the next video