(from the back of the book)

"Your mother would be very proud..." Yuki Okuda heard these words when she was achieving in school, excelling in sports, even when she became president of the Kobe student council. And she could always imagine the unexpressed thought that followed: "...if your mother hadn't killed herself."

But Shizuko Okuda did commit suicide, and Yuki had to learn how to live with a father who didn't seem to love her and a stepmother who treated her badly. Most important, she had to learn how to live with herself: a twelve-year-old Japanese girl growing up alone, trying to make sense of a tragedy that made no sense at all...