A layered coming-of-age story from the author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.Have you ever said something like it? "I want to be a grown-up like this." or "I don't want to be a grown-up like that." But eventually we all grew up as an awkward adult with frustration, loneliness, regretfulness or longing...It is a book for people who are not satisfied with their life and want to re-start again. An unhappy girl who engages in self-harm high school girl, a woman ostracized by society, and an old woman looking to live out her twilight years in peace—what could three such different people have in common? That’s what grade schooler Koyanagi Nanoka is trying to find out. Assigned by her teacher to define what “happiness” means to her, Nanoka sets out to get to know these three strangers—and through them, perhaps, to know herself too.

【Plot Summery】Nanoka is a smart but lone elementary school girl. In a rainy day, she met a short tail cat and went to ask for help. That's how she met Skank-san, a woman ostracized by society. She met a grandma who lives in a big wooden house. And then she met a self-harm highly school girl Minami-san in a ruined square stone house. Everyday, she went to visit them after school with the cat Miss Bobtail. She asked these three women "What's happiness?"Minami-san said her happiness is "having someone recognized you." Skank-san said "Happiness is being able to think serious about someone." Grandma introduced "The Little Prince," "Tom Sawyer" and "The Adventures of Hucklebury Finn" to Nanoka and discussed the stories with her. She said "Happiness is being able to say that you're happy."The strange thing is Minami and Skank both having the same dreams again. They had the dream to be an unhappy girl with isolated relation with others.In the end of the story, Nanoka is a young lady, but had the same dream again. She found herself have the same face of Minami and going to look like Sakank. What is happiness? It is like the song that Nanoka always likes to sing."Happiness won't cooome, wondering my way sooo, that's why I set ooout to find it today."