Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

It Has No Name

Rate this book
‘Are you a boy or a girl?’

Sami should be used to this question, but it still turns her insides to ice. And there will be a lot more for her to face when Ma and she move back to Chandnisarai, a place where she was once viciously bullied.

But the town wrong-foots her from the get-go. Her new school doesn’t insist on skirts and, after some initial curiosity, her classmates are indifferent to her severe buzzcut. Sami finds refuge in the cricket club by day and discovers a whole new world of streaming television by night. She even makes friends: the level-headed Laila, the fun-loving Murad, the mysterious Vidhi, and—online—the nameless Gaybe.

As Sami starts to be lulled into a sense of ease, however, old secrets and forgotten memories resurface. She must make a choice, but in doing so, will she lose the friendships that are her lifelines?

An irresistible coming-of-age story of a gay teen in modern India.

Kindle Edition

Published July 19, 2021

5 people are currently reading
42 people want to read

About the author

Payal Dhar

23 books48 followers
Payal Dhar (she/they) has been writing stories since they were seven years old. Unfortunately, no one will ever know what was in them because they dog ate everything. They write on a computer these days, and hopes they’ll never cross paths with a Pting.

In her day job, which she does at night because she hates mornings, she is a freelance journalist on science, technology and society. She also writes books for middle-grade and young-adult readers.

If you’d like to get in touch, especially to recommend good books, you can do so at their website, payaldhar.com.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
5 (21%)
4 stars
10 (43%)
3 stars
8 (34%)
2 stars
0 (0%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Avani ✨.
1,895 reviews444 followers
September 11, 2021
It Has No Name by Payal Dhar, a coming-of-age story of a gay teen in modern India. Sami, who has been facing identity crisis and similar issues in figuring out her own identity has now been told to shift to a new city with her mother, Chandnisarai, a place where she was once bullied.

The book deals with a lot of topics which are generally not spoken about and are considered a topic of taboo. But the book deals with it very brilliantly with considering and keeping in mind all perspectives in point. Topics like bullying, cyberbullying, as well as divorce and domestic abuse has been spoken.

Reading this book made me think a lot about our society as well as some thoughts and questions came to my mind. Is it necessary to judge a person by appearance? How many of us actually ask for opposite person's pronouns when we meet someone new before calling them he/she?

Indian Literature definitely needs some more similar books as well as books that address more characters and backgrounds with Indian Culture and Indian LQBTQ+ rights as well as stories. This book was overall a very impactful as well as a very well narrated book. I liked Sami as a character as well as the development of the plot was great.
Profile Image for Aruna Kumar Gadepalli.
2,821 reviews116 followers
August 10, 2021
This book deals with the confusion, realization about identity, particularly among young adults. This new age fiction - talks about various issues that young adults go through. Well-written book that will bring awareness about the areas that otherwise are into the area of taboo. Sensitivity to the growing young adults, issues that are part of the growing technology, cyberbullying, domestic abuse, issues related to divorce of parents, and more are dealt with to make the reader understand the issues of the young adults while growing.
Profile Image for Varun Iyer.
238 reviews14 followers
August 29, 2024
OK I LOVEDDDDD THISSSSSS!! Like Indian queer rep??? Why didn’t I read this sooner? It’s just as good as all the american YA novels I’ve read and the Indian-ness actually made me enjoy it more. This was good!
Profile Image for Saurabh Sharma.
133 reviews31 followers
October 21, 2021
First published on Feminism in India

It Has No Name: Payal Dhar’s Slightly Underwhelming Take On A Queer Teen’s Life

The verbal assault that most queer children are subjected to because of their perceived distinct outer appearance changes their worldview forever. In the sense that, they not only come to realise that they are deemed a misfit in this conventionally gendered world but also make them wary of people in general, even those who may not mean harm, and both factors contributing to further alienation.

Sami, the principal character, of It Has No Name (Red Panda, an imprint of Westland, 2021) — the tenth book by journalist and novelist Payal Dhar — is one such queer teen. Her life is punctuated by gender policing by virtually everyone except her parents. The sixteen-year-old is often asked: “Are you a boy or a girl?” People are shown so confused that in a small town in the Hills Chandanisarai, where Sami and her mother had moved because her mother co-owns Bakehouse with her friend Fardeen there, a boy in a teashop comes with her order saying: “Bhaiya, your tea and bun.”

Dhar’s taut prose in It Has No Name revolves around this frustration of Sami which is in turn eating her up from the inside. And to make matters worse, she had to move to a new place and leave old friends behind. Even though Chandanisarai’s weather is comforting, Sami doesn’t show her frustration to her mother. Besides the weather, being part of the sports team in her school is also a comforting sign. Not all is lost it seems.

However, Sami, who wants to just be and, as we’re told, wants to free herself from any sort of labels, feels like a lost cause. A careful reader can easily identify that, in more than three hundred pages of self-engrossed storytelling, the writer, who would have liked to make the protagonist stick to her guns, ends up demonstrating her contradicting herself.

Sample this, for example: When Sudha-didi ridicules Sami for wearing “the same boy-clothes?”, the latter retorts: “I look like myself and I’m wearing my clothes.” But in a conversation with Vidhi, the (unreliable) narrator, Sami who is ‘checking out’ Vidhi’s clothes, remarks: “Jeans with embroidery on the legs, and a very girly sweater that had ruffles around the neck.” For someone who likes wearing her clothes and without any gendered labels too at that, how come the sweater appears girly? On the contrary, it’s Vidhi who says that she ‘hates’ labels but Sami who, at least in her rants that are peppered throughout the book is irritated of gender-boxing, seems to do just the opposite.


Sami’s fickle-mindedness and being contrary to her character can be understood with an excuse: that she is a teenager going through a lot. Her parents start living separately and soon start filing for divorce. They both convince their daughter that they’re available if she ever wants to discuss ‘this’. But Sami wants her parents to ‘try harder’. It is a lot for a child to process.

But sometimes you wonder how is it that this mother, who towards the end of It Has No Name confesses that she’s ‘known it all along’ by showing to Sami Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special, yet never had the time to have a heart-to-heart talk with her daughter about the bullying that she’s been subjected to at the hands of relatives and everyone in the society alike because of the way she conducts herself?

Yet, not all is going wrong in Sami’s life. With the help of her crush, Jasmine, who eventually becomes her lover, and coach S. M. Swapna (SMS), Sami becomes part of their school team for a match, in which she hits herself with the bat while playing a shot and their team ends up losing the game. But because the team would’ve lost disgracefully had Sami not brought them closer to a respectable loss, everyone congratulates her.

Further, Sami saves her friend whom she might have otherwise lost to the perilous Blue Whale Challenge, and sort of, graduates from being the ‘new girl’ to the most-admired girl in the neighbourhood.

However, for a reader, there is so much that can appear overwhelming. Reading It Has No Name has been taxing for me personally. I feel that the book could have fared well had the writer concentrated on perfecting a few strands of storylines and told them well. Dhar’s usage of previously mastered themes — teenage angst and women in sports — in a new book isn’t as convincing as her erstwhile works. Not only that, for a story that premonishes harm, pain, and homophobia, there is little for the reader to do, making it a underwhelming queer read.
6 reviews
July 29, 2022
Women are expected to look and act "feminine", based on what society perceives that to be and this is clearly oppressive as not everyone has the same idea of what it means to be feminine. And yet, whenever a woman chooses to dress in a way that is not "feminine" the society is quick to call her out. This is where the term "tomboy" comes in. A tomboy is a girl who behaves in a way that is perceived to be stereotypically boyish or masculine. Some women find the term offensive whilst some apply the term to themselves proudly. Again this only proves that femininity is highly subjective.

"Are you a boy or a girl?"
Sami should be used to this question, but it still turns her insides to ice. And there will be a lot more for her to face when ma and she move back to Chandnisarai, a place where she was once viciously bullied. It Has No Name by Payal Dhar is an irresistible coming-of-age story of a gay teen in modern India.

In a country like India where there is strong attachment to traditional beliefs, it is very difficult for people to accept new changes which is why in this story, Sami who had short hair and always matched a shirt to her pants; who loved playing cricket and liked girls, was often bullied. It is a constant struggle for women like her to be able to fit in and be accepted in the society. However throughout the whole story, Sami was committed to being herself, she never changed herself just because others told her to. She stood her ground and faced the obstacles that came her way.

The author has portrayed the Indian culture and lgtbq rights without holding anything back, which is absolutely fantastic. Apart from all of this the story also shed light on topics such as bullying, cyber bullying, divorce and domestic abuse. This was my first time reading an lgbtq book by an Indian author  and I am definitely looking forward to read more of them in the future.

The only drawback of the book was that I felt that the author tried to cover too many complex topics in one story because of which the topic that deserved the most attention, that is being a tomboy and also a gay teen in modern India, was not addressed clearly towards the end. But otherwise the story was well narrated and is something that deserves to be heard. So I'd definitely recommend picking this book up.
Profile Image for Harini Gopalswami Srinivasan.
Author 8 books71 followers
September 22, 2021
This book taught me to empathise with a group of people I have never seriously talked about, or to: LGBT. I have read and thought about the movement, and felt broadly that they should be free to live their lives the way they want, and it was nobody's business but theirs. But it was always an academic thing. For the first time, I got to understand closely the hopes, fears, confusion, social insecurity, and the courage needed to negotiate a different kind of life. Thank you, Payal Dhar, for this enlightening and enthralling book: it is an education, and will hopefully benefit a lot of young people.

Sami, the protagonist, of "It Has No Name" is a strong character - bright, likeable, a thinking individual, who develops wonderfully over the course of the book. Her parents and her Nani (who dies before the action opens), her friends Laila, Jasmine, Murad and Vidhi are all interesting, well rounded characters, real people. Though Sami's identity problems are at the forefront of the book, there are so many other dimensions to the story and the characters - finding one's feet in a new school, cricket, projects, friendships, a dark thread of domestic abuse, and so much more. Chandnisarai is a fascinating place with an interesting history. I wish it was a real place that I could visit!

I enjoyed every bit of this complex and yet fun book. Though I was cheering when Sami and Jasmine got their happy ending, I was also sad the whole other life I had been living was over. Fortunately, I found there was an earlier book, "Hit for a Six", about Rosebud Academy (you read that right!) and the cricket team. Hurrah!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for S.
136 reviews63 followers
July 11, 2022
💙 It Has No Name by Payal Dhar is a book I will hold very dear to my heart. It's a story about Sami, a teenager, who had to move to her mother's hometown because her parents said so.

💙 Sami has always been the odd one out even in a city filled with various kinds of people. So when she had to move to a small town, she knew she wouldn't be able to fit in. She was prepared to be looked at and to be misgendered because that's what people did when they met her.

💙 Just because she didn't conform to the notions of being a "girl", that is, having long hair, wearing dresses, not playing on the ground with boys etc., she was constantly made to feel that there was something wrong with her. Relatives giving her advice to not make things difficult for her parents. Telling her to behave like a girl does and stop whatever "this" was. But to Sami, she was committed to being herself as that was the last thing her grandmother said to her.

💙 As Sami settles into a new town and school, she finds friends that like her as she is and she finds joy in playing cricket for the school. Oh, I was so nostalgic about my time in school when the biggest problem was how I would finish my math homework. I loved the friendships she developed and the characters were all so lovely. Their conversations were also hilarious at times and I genuinely laughed out loud.

💙 One of my favourite things was Sami immersing herself in a tv show lesbian couple and finding comfort through them.
For so many of us, queer visibility is only through shows and movies. To be able to see such representation in any form is so important for kids to let them know they're not alone.

💙 I would have liked this book more if it had more of its focus on Sami and her life but towards the end, the plot totally changes its course and takes on too many complex topics and then ends very quickly. I wish the author hadn't done this because it felt very rushed and justice wasn't done to it.

💙 Despite the end, I truly enjoyed reading this book. It was quite wonderful to read about an Indian queer kid and I am hoping that more publishers get behind this genre because we so desperately need it. Looking forward to reading more books from Payal as well!

💙 Read this book with @bankrupt_bookworm for his book club and had fun discussing it! 🥰💖
#bookedreviewbysaiesha

Follow me on instagram for more reviews @literarychai_
Profile Image for Anushka Sierra.
290 reviews22 followers
February 23, 2023
Find this and other reviews of mine at Feminist Quill

Synopsis: When Sami and her mother move back to her hometown, she expects that life is about to take a turn for the worse. She has nothing but bad memories of her life in Chandnisarai. But move she must, and as she tries to adjust to her new life, she finds that even a small place like Chandnisarai can have surprises in store for her.

[Personal update/ disclaimer] I’m trying to get back into reviewing after my annual falling off the writing wagon ritual, so if my writing feels strained, that’s why.

We don’t have a lot of queer rep in Indian fiction – and especially not in fiction for teens, YA, and kids. Most of us got (and still get) our LGBTQ literature from Western writers – usually Americans. So is it refreshing to find a book authored by an Indian enby? Undoubtedly.

But is this book everything you’d want to read? Guess not. And that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be. But I really hope that It Has No Name will inspire even more queer writers to put their work forward, and more editors and publishing houses to pick those works up. Because queer fiction from Indian authors, for Indian readers? That’s an endless well of desire and we’re all dying for more.

It Has No Name left me with a sense of sweet relief. The thought of two high school girls in a small Indian town somewhere getting to proclaim their love for each other – getting to be with each other? It’s pure happiness that alone makes this read a worthwhile one.

But that being said, the book does carry signs of inexperienced writing – the hallmarks of a young, debut author, if you will.

The plot is a little all over the place. Two mysteries linger over Sami as she navigates Chandnisarai – the secret of the bullying she faced as a child in this town, told largely as flashbacks, and the secret one of her new friends carries, one that seemingly seems to weigh her down more and more as we pass through the story.

Neither mystery fully delivered – the first was a classic case of too much build up and an understated reveal, whereas the second was downright bizarre and came absolutely out of left field.



I was also pretty braced for a rehashing of the trauma I personally experienced as an odd, queer, newcomer in a small town. Surprisingly enough, It Has No Name leaves both the reader and Sami a bit nonplussed as the small town turns out to be filled with as many diverse types of kids as you might expect from a metropolitan city.

This subversion of stereotypes is hardly a reinvention of the wheel. And yet, it is aptly placed within context because those stereotypes are exactly what most of us still expect from small towns.

The story holds together despite these distractions because it’s built on a strong foundation. In short, It Has No Name is laser focused on the strong bonds between its teen characters – on the love they feel and express towards each other.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.