There is a particular kind of ache that comes from loving something the world tells you should be incompatible with who you are. Ahmad Saber knows this intimately, and in Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber, he channels it into a debut so tender, funny, and gut-wrenchingly real that you will laugh on one page and blink back tears on the next.
This contemporary YA novel introduces Ramin Noor Abbas, a Pakistani-Canadian senior at Hikma High, Toronto’s top-ranked private Muslim school. Ramin is brilliant, anxious, obsessed with Broadway’s Wicked, and harbouring a secret that threatens to unravel his carefully folded life: he is gay. And in a world where even listening to music can be declared haram, the questions piling up inside him are anything but minor.
The Plot That Keeps You on Your Cleats
The premise sounds deceptively simple. Ramin discovers he is fifty PE hours short of graduating and the only option is joining the school soccer team. For a kid whose athletic highlight is folding origami dragons, this is already catastrophic. But then there is Omar Saleh, the ridiculously handsome team captain with kind eyes and a habit of being the only person who notices when Ramin is hurting.
What unfolds is far more layered than a typical coming-of-age sports story. Saber weaves together blackmail, family honour, immigrant sacrifice, theological questioning, and first love with a deftness that keeps you turning pages at a dangerous pace. Ramin must navigate Assim Qureshi, the bully who discovers his secret and weaponizes it; parents who crossed continents so their sons could succeed; and the terrifying question of whether Allah could truly reject someone He created.
Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber never takes the easy route. It earns every revelation, every confrontation, and every quiet moment of grace.
A Voice You Will Not Forget
Ramin as Narrator
What makes this novel truly sing is Ramin’s narrative voice. Saber writes in first-person present tense, and the effect is electric. Ramin describes his internal conflict as a “two-headed monster” whose heads are guilt and shame. He calls Assim “Ass-im” in his head. He refers to Omar as “Captain Handsome” and himself as someone whose only friends are “Allah and Wi-Fi.”
This voice never feels manufactured. It reads like a real teenager talking to you, one who happens to be extraordinarily observant about the absurdities of his own predicament. The humour is wry and specific to the Desi-Muslim experience, whether Ramin is lamenting yet another Filet-O-Fish because everything else is non-Halal, or braving thrift stores with his father because money is tight.
The Supporting Cast
Saber populates Hikma High with characters who feel lived-in rather than assembled from parts:
Omar Saleh is that rare YA love interest who is genuinely his own person, brave where Ramin is cautious, patient where most would walk away, and quietly dealing with his own faith questions behind the screen name “Qaswa622” on an Islamic advice forum.
Zayn, Ramin’s younger brother, steals scenes with his bow-tie-wearing, samosa-empire-building precociousness and fierce loyalty.
Assim Qureshi could have been a one-note villain, but Saber gives him a family in crisis, complicating the reader’s impulse to simply despise him.
Fahad, the team captain, embodies quiet discipline and the kind of leadership that earns respect rather than demanding it.
Faith Is Not the Villain Here
Perhaps the bravest thing about Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber is its refusal to frame Islam as the enemy. Too many stories about queer people from religious backgrounds reduce faith to an obstacle to be discarded. Saber does something far more nuanced. Ramin loves Allah. He prays. He finds comfort in prostration. And he feels Allah’s presence like a friend closer than his own jugular vein. And he is also gay.
The theological wrestling here is some of the most compelling in YA fiction. Ramin’s visit to Mufti Luqman, where he asks questions “for a friend,” is a masterclass in dramatic irony. The Ask a Brother forums, where anonymous Muslim teenagers debate scripture and sexuality, feel ripped from an actual subreddit. And the drag queen Layla Luscious, who tells Ramin that Allah cannot hate a heart full of love, delivers what may be the novel’s thesis with elegant simplicity.
Saber does not pretend there are easy answers. He presents the full spectrum of responses and trusts his readers to sit with the complexity.
Where the Narrative Occasionally Stumbles
No debut is without growing pains. At over four hundred pages, the novel occasionally lingers where it could stride. The middle sections around soccer practices can feel repetitive, and certain plot mechanics, especially the blackmail arc, rely on contrivances that stretch credibility. Assim’s sudden decision to back down at a pivotal moment feels slightly rushed given how meticulously his menace was built.
There are also moments where the narrative tells us what characters feel rather than trusting us to infer it from action and dialogue. While the parents’ eventual trajectory feels authentic to many immigrant family dynamics, some readers may find their arcs resolved more neatly than real life typically allows.
These are minor criticisms in the context of a novel that gets so much right. The emotional core never wavers, and the voice carries you through every imperfect passage.
The Craft Behind the Heart
A few elements of Saber’s craft deserve particular recognition:
The “two-headed monster” metaphor functions as Ramin’s personification of internalized homophobia, deployed with remarkable discipline, evolving from a terrifying presence to something he ultimately faces down.
The Wicked and Broadway motifs are not mere pop-culture dressing. “Defying Gravity” becomes a genuine thematic throughline mirroring Ramin’s journey from hiding to soaring.
The use of Arabic and Urdu is seamless, never italicized for exoticism, never over-explained, simply there.
The revelation that Omar is Qaswa622 is one of the most satisfying plot turns in recent YA, set up with meticulous care.
An Early Copy, and a Promise Fulfilled
I should mention that my experience with this novel came through an advance reader copy, generously provided by the publisher ahead of publication. It is a privilege I do not take lightly, and the fact that this story reached me before it reaches shelves only deepens my conviction that it will find the readers who need it most, those teenagers scrolling through forums at midnight, wondering if they are the only ones who feel this way. Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber is here to tell them, unequivocally, that they are not.
A Debut Drawn from Life
Ahmad Saber grew up in Pakistan before his family relocated to Canada during his high school years. He is a practicing rheumatologist, and this is his debut novel, drawn in part from his own lived experience as a queer, Desi, Muslim immigrant. That autobiographical thread explains the specificity and emotional authority the narrative carries. This is not a story written from research alone; it is written from the marrow.
If You Loved This, Read These Next
For readers who connected with this novel, the following titles explore similar territory from different angles:
The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes — A queer girl navigates identity and romance at a religious school with the same warmth and humour.
Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating by Adiba Jaigirdar — A Bangladeshi-Muslim teen in a fake-dating scheme exploring cultural expectations and queer identity.
The Passing Playbook by Isaac Fitzsimons — A trans teen joins a new school’s soccer team and risks exposure, blending sports and belonging.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli — The gold standard for YA coming-out stories, featuring anonymous online connections and the terror of being outed.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo — Queer coming-of-age within a conservative cultural community, exploring how identity coexists with heritage.
Final Thoughts: Allah Never Wanted You to Choose
There is a moment near the end of this novel that I cannot share without revealing too much, but I will say this: it involves one of Allah’s ninety-nine names, a train platform, and a gesture of such quiet tenderness that it knocked the air clean out of my lungs.
Ramin Abbas Has MAJOR Questions by Ahmad Saber is not a perfect book, but it is an important one, and more than that, a deeply human one. It asks the questions many are too afraid to voice and has the courage to leave some of them beautifully unanswered. For every queer Muslim kid who has prayed to be different and wondered why their prayer went unanswered, this novel whispers back: maybe you were the answer all along.