Heavy stuff. [Take It Back by Kia Abdullah]

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.

When I started reading Kia Abdullah's Take It Back, fresh with no recollection of the synopsis, I wasn't ready for the heaviness of sexual assault, right in my face, in prose. As I continued on I came to value to novel because of what my read reflected back on me. Why, when the would-be victim, Jodie, came forward, was I so quick to lean on any question of doubt? I've always said I'd believe anyone coming forward as a victim of sexual assault,  no matter what. But here I was, with a fictional character, being baited into doubting the veracity of her claim. When the defendants cited their future and their aspirations were detailed, the hard-working family behind them, why was I weighing the potential harm of a false rape claim against the victim? And then I got really invested in the story and its use as a tool of discussion on the social contexts of sexual assault. Waiting for a wild twist and reveal of truth, I continued on with my read.

But I also had some issues with the story. Intersectional, which while a story of sexual assault ought never be, Take It Back played with the immigration and related xenophobia of having non-white suspects against the backdrop of the United Kingdom. Jodie's lawyer, Zara, is a tradition-breaking Muslim woman at odds with her family and increasingly at odds with her local Muslim community. Character dialogue makes the point that British Muslims, I supposed standing in for just the (local) Muslim community, are not a monolith. But then all we get is mob mentality. Zara maybe has one friend of similar background who supports her, but their is never a diverse discussion held among Muslim characters on the issue at hand. It's made to be a monolithic community acting out of racial fear against one lone character fighting for a  sexual assault victim. I can't speak to the realistic portrayal of cultural norms or not, but I do wish that we'd seen more dialogue or characters speaking out in support of Zara and her actions. 

Finally, at the end, after an intimate assault and familiarity with a rape case the story briefly turns into a false accusation story. Despite an in-story estimation of no more than 4% of claims being false, for some reason we had to have our moment of, yes, the victim was lying.  The emotional investiture, soured in an instance. A would-be false claimant, still living their life, with people hoping for the best for them. And then, if that's wasn't enough, she actually had been assaulted. And the resolution is implied but left in the air. 

I don't know, I feel like I was led all over the place emotionally. I didn't care for the ending, I would have liked something more concrete. I would have liked to see more consequences or what imagined communal aftershocks we might have seen. Instead, the conclusion, in the context of the story building up to it, felt rushed and unresolved. And then it's like, what was the point? Was the point to reflect on how we are brainwashed to think of rape victims? Was the point to shame 4% of false claimants? That the truth is never told? Or too complex to be told? I think this was a hard book to read, one, because sexual assault is not a vehicle for the escapism that I seek in books, and two, because it was a heavy subject matter. But I also think this was an important read. Maybe not the best execution, but important nonetheless.  I would most recommend it as a discussion starter, but these were not happy emotions I felt reading this book. 3 stars from me.

Take It Back (ISBN:9781250273017) was published December 2020.