Synopsis

From author Kia Abdullah, Take It Back is a harrowing and twisting courtroom thriller that keeps you guessing until the last page is turned.

One victim.

Four accused.

Who is telling the truth?

Zara Kaleel, one of London’s brightest legal minds, shattered the expectations placed on her by her family and forged a brilliant legal career. But her decisions came at a high cost, and now, battling her own demons, she has exchanged her high profile career for a job at a sexual assault center, helping victims who need her the most. Victims like Jodie Wolfe.

When Jodie, a sixteen-year-old girl with facial deformities, accuses four boys in her class of an unthinkable crime, the community is torn apart. After all, these four teenage defendants are from hard-working immigrant families and they all have proven alibis. Even Jodie’s best friend doesn’t believe her.

But Zara does—and she is determined to fight for Jodie—to find the truth in the face of public outcry. And as issues of sex, race and social justice collide, the most explosive criminal trial of the year builds to a shocking conclusion.

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Praise

“Riveting, thought-provoking legal thriller… Abdullah is definitely a writer to watch.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Abdullah has done an exemplary job of character development and is especially good at ratcheting up suspense as the trial proceeds.” – Booklist, starred review

“A thought-provoking and sparklingly intelligent novel, with the welcome bonus of an unguessable ending.” —The Telegraph

Review

This book hits a number of “hot” topics and if you are afraid of reality then this isn’t the book for you. But if you are willing to take a dive into a hotbed of topics then you just might like this book.

The one thing I have never liked about someone accusing another of sexual assault or rape is that it is a woman and no one seems to believe her. She must have “done something” to encourage the attack which is never the case. In this novel, Jodie is a teenager with a deformity that is attacked by four boys from her school. She is white and they are brown and Muslim on top of that. What shocked me was how much the boys’ community assumed they were innocent. Yes, it is a case of he said, she said, but why would one girl accuse four boys if it didn’t happen? But perhaps their community is no different than any other in presuming innocence of their own.

Zara is the advocate for Jodie and supports her in her quest for the truth. But is everything that Jodie tells her the truth? There are many half-truths that come to light in the course of the investigation and the trial. It is hard to know who to believe and what actually happened that night. Zara believes Jodie, but there are times where she wonders what might have really happened that night. Zara has her own demons to battle including drug dependency, a failed marriage, a dysfunctional family from an outsider’s point of view but what culture seems to dictate as normal for them.

As I traversed this novel and learned more at every turn, I too wondered what was the truth and how the trial would play out. Only in the end do we really discover the truth of what happened that night to Jodie but the journey there is hard to endure.

I think I felt sadness for Zara and her life. She was forced into a marriage she didn’t want due to the culture of her family and when she wanted out it was nearly impossible to move on and garner the support of her family. On top of that, when they discover she is working on this case they feel like she is turning her back on her community by supporting someone that is accusing four Muslim boys of rape. I was a little surprised that they thought she should believe the boys innocent just because they were like her, brown and Muslim.

The Muslim community was brutal to Zara because she fought for the truth. She was attached and belittled at every turn. I can’t even imagine how I would feel in her shoes.

This is a powerhouse novel that hits so many hot topics at once. It will keep you in its grips until the very end.

We give this book 4 paws up.

About the Author

KIA ABDULLAH is an author and travel writer. She has contributed to The Guardian, BBC, Channel 4 News, and The New York Times. Kia currently travels the world as one half of the travel blog Atlas & Boots, which receives over 200,000 views per month.

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