Excerpt from Take It Back by Kia Abdullah, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Nina made me wear these low-rise jeans and I just felt so stupid. She wanted to put lipstick on me but I said no. I didn't want anyone to see that I was … trying." Jodie squirmed with embarrassment. "We arrived just after ten. I remember because Nina said any earlier and we'd look desperate. The music was so loud. Nina's always found it easy to make friends. I've never known why she chose me to be close to. I didn't want to tag along with her all evening—she's told me off about that before—so I tried to talk to a few people." Jodie met Zara's gaze. "Do you know how hard that is?"

Zara thought of all the corporate parties she had attended alone; how keen she had been for a friend—but then she looked at Jodie's startling face and saw that her answer was, "No." Actually, she didn't know how hard it was.

Jodie continued, "Nina was dancing with this guy, all close. I couldn't face the party without her, so I went outside to the park round the back." She paused. "I heard him before I saw him. His footsteps were unsteady from drinking. Amir Rabbani. He—he's got these light eyes that everyone loves. He's the only boy who hasn't fallen for Nina."

Zara noted the glazed look in Jodie's eyes, the events of that night rendered vivid in her mind.

Jodie swallowed. "He came and sat next to me and looked me in the eye, which boys never do unless they're shouting ugly things at me." She gave a plaintive smile. "He reached out and traced one of my nails with his finger and I remember thinking at least my hands are normal. Thank you, God, for making my hands normal." Jodie made a strangled sound: part cry and part scoff, embarrassed by her naïvety. "He said I should wear lace more often because it makes me look pretty and—" Her gaze dipped low. "I believed him."

Jodie reached for a tissue but didn't use it, twisting it in her hands instead. "He said, 'I know you won't believe me but you have beautiful lips and whenever I see you, I wonder what it would be like to kiss you.'" Jodie paused to steady her voice. "He asked if I would go somewhere secret with him so he could find out what it was like. I've never known what it's like to be beautiful but in that moment I got a taste and…" Jodie's eyes brimmed with tears. "I followed him." She blinked them back through the sting of shame.

Zara smarted as she watched, dismayed that Jodie had been made to feel that way: to believe that her value as a young woman lay in being desirable, but that to desire was somehow evil.

Jodie kneaded the tissue in her fingers. "He led me through the estate to an empty building. I was scared because there were cobwebs everywhere but he told me not to worry. He took me upstairs. We were looking out the window when…" Jodie flushed. "He asked me what my breasts were like. I remember feeling light-headed, like I could hear my own heart beating. Then he said, 'I ain't gonna touch 'em if they're ugly like the rest of you.'" Jodie's voice cracked just a little—a hairline fracture hiding vast injury.

Zara watched her struggle with the weight of her words and try for a way to carry them, as if switching one for another or rounding a certain vowel may somehow ease her horror.

Jodie's voice grew a semitone higher, the tissue now balled in her fist. "Before I could react, his friends came out of the room next door. Hassan said, 'This is what you bring us?' and Amir said he chose me because I wouldn't tell anyone. Hassan said, 'Yeah, neither would a dog.'"

Jodie gripped her knee, each finger pressing a little black pool in the fabric of her jeans. Her left foot tap-tapped on the floor as if working to a secret beat. "Amir said, 'She's got a pussy, don't she?' and told me to get on my knees. I didn't understand what was happening. I said no. He tried to persuade me but I kept saying no…" Jodie exhaled sharply, her mouth forming a small O as if she were blowing on tea. "He—he told his friends to hold me."

Excerpted from Take It Back by Kia Abdullah. Copyright © 2020 by Kia Abdullah. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.