★ Selected for DA VINCI magazine's August 2026 issue "Platinum Books – This Month's Must-Reads."
★ Ten years of caring for a sick mother. Arrested for helping her commit suicide. Starting middle school again at twenty. This is not another sob story—it's a defiant, darkly comic debut novel about reclaiming a stolen youth.
★ The author's first full-length novel, following her award-winning debut I'm Not Here to Be Saved, continues exploring the "young caregiver" theme—refusing tragedy, choosing laughter instead.
★ Taken in by her aunt and moving to Tokyo, she works at a nursing home while studying for middle school exams. How do you live your twenties when your teens were stolen from you?
★ A young woman who lost ten years of her childhood finds herself again through writing. For every young person still trying to survive under the weight of their family.

Can turning your life into a story become your salvation?
Hikari is arrested on suspicion of helping her ailing mother commit suicide. This is the story of how she takes back her stolen youth and reclaims her life.
From childhood through her teenage years—nearly a decade—Hikari barely attended school, spending her days caring for her chronically ill mother almost entirely on her own in the family home in Kitakyushu. She was arrested on suspicion of aiding her mother's suicide by hanging, and was ultimately found guilty and given a suspended sentence. After leaving the detention center, she was taken in by her aunt and moved to Tokyo. At twenty, while working at a care facility, she began studying for her middle school exams all over again, determined to reclaim the youth she never had. During this time, she meets a writer named Hibiya, who encourages her to turn her experience into a novel...

UEMURA Yuka

Born in Saga City in 2000. Graduated from Kyoto University of the Arts Graduate School in 2026. Won the 21st "R-18 Literary Prize by Women, for Women" for I'm Not Here to Be Saved. Made her debut in 2025 with the short story collection of the same title, published by Shinchosha. Her other works include Hot Potato Party and I Don't Get What's Funny .