Rough Read
This was a rough read – gang rape, facial disfigurement, abuse at home and school. My heart went out to Jodie This is the first time that I had a hard time reading a book with these trigger warnings. I went through lots of bullying when I was younger so I guess that part of the story hit too close to home for me.

Zara Kaleel, a former lawyer, takes on Jodie’s case. She is now working with abuse victims. While it seems that no one else believes Jodie, Zara does. Zara is also Muslim, as are the guys accused of raping Jodie. This creates a powerful subplot to the story – a Muslim prosecutor, a non-Muslim victim, and Muslim defendants. This leads to Zara being ostracized in her community. Zara in my opinion goes through a rough transformation herself which was also hard to read.

Surprisingly, I had a hard time getting into the book. I think it just tried to cover too much. Rape, abuse, religion, islamophobia, race. Perhaps fewer issues dealt with more thoroughly would have made it better. Just my opinion. While a good read just covered too much and didn’t give everything enough time to breathe in my opinion. Now let’s talk about the end…. Don’t get me wrong we all love a good plot twist but when it comes as the last two sentences it leaves the reader confused and needing more answers. A solid three star read just rough from start to finish.

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Cosmos in a dew drop ( )

If you are looking for a compelling legal thriller then Take It Back is definitely for you. A court case between a 16-year-old rape victim Jodie, and four Muslim boys who were the accused. I thought well this is going to be a book full of fluff, but ultimately, you know what’s going to happen because every time you see this on TV shows that's what happens. Now I am not going to say whether they are guilty or not, ahh that would spoil it for you but I Well, I am pleased to say I was wrong about the fluff. It highlighted lots of prejudices of religion, class status, gender and race as well as the actual rape. These are things that happen every day in the UK and I think the author did a great job with the writing.
It was an intense read, full of emotions and it that kept me guessing, I kept swapping my opinions on who was telling the truth. It had me up in arms at times.
This is the first book I have read by Kia Abdullah, it will most certainly not be my last. ( )

After thinking about it, I really disliked the ending. ( )

generally speaking, this was really well done. the tension was super high the entire time, it was impossible to really know where the truth lay, all of the characters were flawed and believable. i hadn't read a courtroom thriller in a long time and this was a great reentry.

and this was more than just a thriller - there is a lot of commentary here about ability and sexual violence in general and about race. the 4 boys accused of rape are muslim, and the girl is white and disabled, and there is a lot to talk about around that. she does a good job with this.

a couple of things throughout didn't quite ring true, like for example and especially there is literally no way that zara would - as a former lawyer and current victim advocate - divulge details of an ongoing investigation in public, including names and sensitive information so anyone could overhear. and the entire story kind of hinges on this happening. i found myself really anxious throughout that this was going to be a case of a girl "crying rape" when it didn't happen, and we really don't need more stories of this. so i was glad that in the end this wasn't what happened, although it was really right up until the end before we knew for sure. in that way it was well done, if a little far fetched. ( )