One of the best books so far this year. Utterly compelling and engrossing and a book that I would sneak reading while in work. Wanted to get to the end so that I could get on with my life. There’s a great amount in this book there were no bounds. It is a must read.

Am I supposed to put my religion ahead of the fact that I’m a woman? Do I owe more loyalty to Islam than a girl who has been victimised?
...
Can’t you see, Mum? Oppression doesn’t spread through men with guns, or bombs on trains. Oppression spreads when women like you tell their daughters to marry a certain man, or wear a certain dress, or work a certain job. It happens when women like you tell us – gently and with all the love in the world – not to peek above the parapet, instead to stay at home, to be quiet, to be kind, to be good..

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sending me an ARC of Take It Back in exchange for an honest review.

Jodie Wolfe, a 16-year-old girl with a disfigured face, accuses four classmates of raping her one night after a party. The accused are Muslims, sons of hard-working parents trying to make a better life in London. The trial that results exposes conflicts about the rights of rape victims, the accused, and the prejudice against Muslims in modern Western societies.

The best part of this novel is the lead character, Zara Kaleel, who is Jodie’s legal advocate. She is a flawed, damaged character—emotionally distant, difficult relationship with her family, abusing several substances, engaging in casual sex to try to forget her problems, etc. Typically, such backstories are written for white male leads, so presenting a Muslim woman with those flaws is a nice change of pace. Her faith places her at the epicenter of this story, as she becomes the focus for both those seeking justice for Jodie and those who believe she’s an Uncle Tom helping an unfair system persecute four more brown kids.

The problem I had with the story was Jodie. Her behavior was odd throughout the entire story. We know almost from the beginning that she is lying about something having to do with the rape—we see her tell the same story differently to Zara and then the police. The effect is that you are then waiting for almost the entire book to learn what really happened that night. For me at least, it reduced the tension, and cheapened the final twists.

The writing is very crisp and strong. The main and even secondary characters are nicely developed. The relationship between Zara and Erin reminded me of Alicia and Kalinda from the TV show The Good Wife. A solid story, even if I didn’t love the ending.

Take It Back is a powerful thriller that was very unexpected in so many ways. Zara Kaleel is a hot shot lawyer in London who suddenly pivots and starts working for a sexual assault center. She works to help rape victims like Jodie Wolfe navigate through their feelings and the legal system. Zara's home life and relationships make her work life complicated to navigate.

Jodie Wolfe is a smart sixteen year old that has a rough home life and facial deformities that work against her. She solicits help at the center after accusing four Muslim boys of rape, which puts the community into a tailspin. The case starts to become about rape and race as the investigators dig for the truth and the neighbors and friends start turning on each other.

This novel touches on issues of racism, sexual assault, and civil unrest in our country. It was well-written and had some surprises throughout.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me to read this book for an honest review.

I was given a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

As a woman, how do you not believe a young girl reporting a heinous crime - gang rape?

Add to the mix religion, conservative upbringing and the shame visited on the victim.

Zara has worked hard getting a law degree and qualifying as a barristor - something her Muslim parents didn't support.

Becoming successful isn't all Zara expected - she is left feeling unsatisfied and starts working for a charity that supports victims of rape and sexual assault.

The plot is tense, brutal and engrossing as Zara tries to prove her 16 yr old client isn't lying - she was brutalized by four classmates.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for gifting me an ARC for Take It Back by Kia Abdullah. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

This novel griped me from page one and I didn’t put the ARC down until I got to the final word. I absolutely loved this legal thriller. Smart, well written, compelling and completely believable, I am a new fan of Kia Abdullah. When a young white girl with severe facial deformities accuses four popular Muslim classmates of gang rape, she ignites a country wide frenzy of He Said/She Said. To add fuel to the fire, Zara, a moderate Muslim barrister is appointed social advocate to Jodie, the alleged sexual assault victim. There are lots of insightful and timely topics about community, culpability, believability, class, religion and victimization.
I highly recommend this courtroom drama.

There have been quite a few fiction books in the last few years featuring plots involving sexual assault. Given the subject matter, it can be mentally draining so I do try to avoid frequently reading these type of stories. This courtroom thriller explores other topics like race and social justice which contributed to it being a thought-provoking read. A depressing read, but one worthy of my time.

Zara Kateel was a rising star in London's legal world but she ended up walking away from her lucrative career as a lawyer. She started working at a sexual assault center where she provides help to the victims. Zara will be assisting Jodie, a sixteen year old girl, who is the frequent target of bullying due to her facial deformities. Jodie has made sexual assault accusations against 4 boys from her school.

Jodie is white and the boys are part of the Muslim immigrant community in London. The case makes the news and some people, including Zara, believe Jodie is telling the truth, and others think she is a liar. The stakes are high and Zara is determined to fight for justice.

The story alternates between multiple characters including Zara, Jodie, and the boys but Zara does seem to be the driving force. I thought the complicated relationships Zara had with family members was fascinating. Her love life didn't enhance the story all that much but I guess it helped paint a picture of her life at the moment. The Muslim immigrant community played a big role in the book and was an added layer to an already complex story.

While there is the whole mystery aspect of the story, I think the main reason to read this book is for the substance. Among other things it takes an depth look at society's opinions about rape and rape victims.

Excellent book,! Kudos to Ms. Abdullah - I completed reading your book in under 48 hours, didn’t want to put it down. I found it well-written, with believable characters (warts and all), timely issues, and an ending that maybe wasn’t what I expected, but was definitely in line with how real life actually sometimes plays out. In fact, I believe the conclusion was one of the strongest elements of this book, in that the author didn’t try to wrap up the events up in a neat little bow. This also approach also left me wondering if I could continue to follow the life of the protagonist, Zara, in subsequent volumes, and was very pleased to see another installment featuring this character has been published.

This courtroom drama kept me at the edge of my seat. I went through emotions of doubt, anger, contempt, sadness, etc. The author Kia Abdullah did a great job of having the reader feel they were a part of the story. The story centers around a 16 year old girl with facial deformities who accuses four Muslim boys of raping her. Her lawyer, who is also Muslim, are thrown into a national scandal with the community taking several different sides. I really enjoyed how the books lets you see the situation through the different characters. Even towards the end, I found myself wondering what the truth really looked like. Well written and highly recommended! I received a complimentary e-book from Netgalley.com.

Take It Back is a stunningly addictive courtroom thriller that doesn’t just graze the surface of issues such as race, class, sex, and power, but dives straight into them through the thoughts and actions of its characters.

The event at the heart of the story is a tangled and distressing one: a white girl with a disfigured face accuses four Muslim boys of raping her. Her caseworker, Zara, is Muslim herself, and determined to believe the girl’s statement and protect her at all costs. With her legal experience, Zara knows how difficult it is to convict a rapist, and how traumatizing the rocky road to justice can be for the victim.

On the other hand, the four boys come from exemplary immigrant families. Their parents work hard to give their children a better future, and theirs were supposed to be success stories, the stories of young men who made it – until the police knock on their doors and demand to know the truth. But the truth is a slippery thing, and once we do find it out, do we really want it?

The case soon starts to spiral out of everybody’s control, as ugly cracks in the veneer of peaceful coexistence appear and show the deep divide between Christians and Muslims, men and women, us and them. It’s her word against theirs, unless someone digs deep enough to uncover what really happened between the teenagers.

In the meantime, Zara’s backstory is slowly uncovered through her interactions with family, friends, and lovers, and it seems like her stakes in the case get higher by the day. As a strong, passionate woman who has gone through trauma herself, her character functions both as a foil to that of Jodie and as the only one who can truly understand her complexity.

The courtroom scenes are really breathtaking, and the book does keep one guessing until the very end. I would have liked to see more intense buildup towards the twist to make it even more credible, but as it is, it’s a really enjoyable read full of suspense.

Not your typical suspense book..but it grabs you , makes you think, and doesn’t let go until the resolution.

I went into this story knowing that it is about a young girl accusing 4 immigrant boys of raping her.
Jodi Wolfe is 16 years old and has a facial deformity. She is living with an abusive alcoholic mother and claims she was attacked by four schoolmates.
The boys are all handsome Muslim boys and say Jodie’s claim did not happen. Why would they touch her when each could have any girl they wanted?

Hmm most of us are familiar with mop mentality so feared the worst for Jodie.
No one seems to believe her..
I was concern about reading a story on this topic.
I do like courtroom drama so was hopeful that the outcome would be satisfying.

There is no doubt that many readers will find this story a difficult emotional read.

Want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for this eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for professional review purposes only. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for December 8, 2020

Wow! Couldn't put it down once I got into it. Kia Abdullah brought Asian customs and beliefs into this page-turning mystery. 4 Muslim boys against one 16 year old deformed girl. Whose telling the truth? How many lives will be changed by her accusation? Today's real issues regarding race issues are addressed and there are no winners. Told from everyone's point of view and you never know who is telling the truth. I highly recommend this to all mystery fans, social science fans, and women studies fans.

Zara Kaleel is a successful London barrister, the daughter of traditional Muslim parents still scandalized by her abandonment of an arranged marriage when she takes on the case of a deformed white teenage girl who was assaulted and raped by four Muslim classmates. Or was she? Although Zara believes Jodie is telling the truth, when conflicting accounts of the crime cast doubt on the girl's story, she's forced to reevaluate not only the case but also her career, her family, and her friends

Zara is battling demons that she fought to get to her high position in the legal field. She decides a change is needed. So she takes a position at a victim center. She is drawn to a 16year old girl Jodie, who is claiming she was sexually assaulted by four boys in her class. These are boys from hard working families who have no record of being disrespectful. Even her best friend is not convinced it happened.

Zara though fully believes her and is ready to stand up and fight for her.

What an engrossing read this was! Definitely a must read. The writing is impressive. The character development is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. The story is not plot driven, it is completely character driven. You feel emotions for each character based on what you are reading and you believe each emotion to be real, much like Zara does through the book. There wasn’t a single page in the book that made me feel differently from what Zara was feeling, and that is a testament to the great writing style of Ms Abdullah. Zara’s character is written with so much clarity that it feels like it’s based on a real person. I hope there is a sequel to this book. This is a character that you could develop a series of books on. She’s a talented lawyer, has a complex background and many many layers of emotionS. She has her flaws as well but as a reader you can connect with her easily.
The plot itself is twisted and we are presented with tidbits of information making the reader wonder what is the truth and where is this headed. The book brings about many points about how a society reacts to certain cases and how that impacts all involved parties. It hits too close to home with some of the situations feeing like real life instances of late.
The book makes you stop and think. Reconsider where the human race is headed. The ending especially is heart wrenching and makes you wonder if you will ever truly understand a person and their true motives? The emotions run high and the book leaves you with some very heavy thoughts and a sort of sadness in your heart when you realize that this work of fiction is too close to our reality. Great job done Ms. Abdullah! Take a bow.

Impressive writing. The story drew me in. While the story revolves around a current issue, the story is character-driven.

This book has great characterization. The four accused boys aren’t all alike in their reactions to Jodie’s accusations: Farid withdraws, Amir and Hassan lash out at others, and Mo seems genuinely troubled by whatever transpired between he, Jodie, and the other boys. Of all the accused, Mo is one that is almost sympathetic. Almost.

Jodie is sympathetic. She’s alone in the world. Her BFF Nina proves to be no friend at all, and her alcoholic mother blames her for every woe in their lives. Her facial deformities make her subject to bullying, and she’s almost nonchalant about the scrutiny she faces whenever she meets someone new. But Abdullah does a great job of making Jodie more complicated, more than simply “victim.” She has her own motives and goals.

Zara is a complex individual. Against her family’s wishes, she chooses to represent Jodie and bring accusations against the four Muslim boys. To her family and many others, it appears that she, a Muslim, is rejecting her community and culture. Her white boyfriend loves her, but she’s ambivalent about him, refusing to totally trust him. Her friend Safran, a colleague, is the only one she seems to trust; but sometimes she’s a little too open with him, to her own (and other people’s) detriment. (Incidentally, it’s nice to see a female-male friendship in fiction that doesn’t involve romance or sex.) She abuses medicine to deal with her stress. She genuinely cares about Jodie, but she finds it difficult to believe everything the girl says. In short, she’s a nuanced character.

Every time I thought things couldn’t get worse for the characters, they do. Abdullah raises the stakes over and over as we wind our way though conflicting claims, different data interpretations, mixed motives and emotionally-charged reactions, with Zara right at the heart of the confusion. After a few chapters, I did my usual skip-to-the-end routine. But despite knowing the ending, Abdullah kept my attention. I couldn’t look away from the book. I couldn’t bear to.

This is a thought-provoking and troubling book that underscores the divisions in society, and shows what happens when we see only the groups that are different from us, and not the individual humans within those groups. Nothing good comes from that. Hatred, violence, chaos.

With brutal honesty, the book shows what rape victims fight against when they come forward. If the standard is that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, then the accuser–the victim–is, by default, a liar until she/he proves the truth. The courtroom scenes are gut-wrenching. If this is how victims are treated in their pursuit of justice, it’s little wonder that many don’t come forward at all.

This is a tough book to read. Readers should be aware that there are racial and sexual pejoratives used, along with some brutal violence. After reading so many crime thrillers, depictions of violence don’t easily upset me. But certain scenes left me shaking. I imagine these might be triggering for those who have survived rape.

Totally engrossing, well-written, and riveting. I highly recommend this to all fans of legal thrillers.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

This review will be posted on my blog on November 16, 2020.

A very moving psychological thriller/courtroom drama. Justice for Jodie, at what cost? Jodi is a teenage girl with facial deformities and an abusive, alcoholic mother. She claims she was raped by 4 16 year old boys. All of boys are sons of hard working immigrants, No one believes Jodi except her lawyer. Issues of consent, rape, race religion all come into play in the telling of this story. I thought about this book long after the final page. Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the advance copy.

It is impossible not to have some pretty hardcore opinions and feelings regarding this explosive tale. This is a story of bullying, rape, abuse and a twisted sense of morality and entitlement, the lessening of another human’s value and the terror of standing alone for justice in the face of judgement. TAKE IT BACK by Kia Abdullah will torture your emotions, your sense of right and wrong and make it difficult to know what to believe until one realizes we are talking an insecure, young teen tossed into the lion’s den of judgement.

We have been taught to mistrust accusations of rape, because in this case, why would four handsome young men want to brutalize a deformed young girl? The girl must be lying, right? With a story that changes, how can Jodie be honest about anything?

An emotional razor wire of epic proportions that leaves no character unscathed. Prepare to feel exhausted by the end, this tale will wring every drop of emotion from anyone who reads it.

I received a complimentary ARC copy from St. Martin's Press! This is my honest and voluntary review.

Seriously, this is probably one of the best books I have read in 2020. "Take It Back" is advertised as a mystery/thrillers but it is a book goes deeper than just merely "what happened" or "whodunit." The author touches social issues, cultural expectations, minorities living in a foreign country, adolescent identities and etc. on top of the expected courtroom drama. The complexity of different elements are crafted together beautifully by the author to make "Take It Back" such a rewarding reading experience. Although it wasn't exactly a page-turner but there was no dull moment, either. The author managed to keep readers guessing until the very last page! I highly recommend this book.

I just finished "Take It Back" and am not certain what to think. I liked the book. It has excellent character development. And it's very well written. That said, it's also disturbing . . . it's too close to 2020. It's hard to talk about the plot without giving away the whole story. Suffice it to say there are twists and there are turns. You may like a character and then flip. I need to digest it fully, but I can say it was a 4.5 star offering.