The Disability Book Archive

[ID: A book cover. The title “Torch” is written at the bottom of the cover in large orange capitals. The author’s name “Lyn Miller-Lachmann” is directly below this, in smaller, yellow capitals. Art of a section of orange barbed wire is between them. Art of dark trees covers the bottom of the cover, behind the text. Above them, the cover depicts an orange sky with birds flying above the trees. In the centre of the book, at the top of the cover, a large blue upside triangle . In the triangle, the large white silhouette of a firebird with a white circle behind it. /end]

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Content Warning:

• Death
• Suicide
• Homophobia
• Ableism
• Violence
• Alcoholism
• Vomit
• Fire
• Pregnancy
• Bullying
• Torture

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Summary:

Three teens struggle to carve out futures for themselves under a totalitarian regime.

Czechoslovakia, 1969

Seventeen-year-old Pavol has watched his country’s freedoms disappear in the wake of the Soviet Union’s invasion. He’s seen his own dreams disappear too. In a desperate, fatal act of protest against the oppressive new government, he sets himself on fire in public, hoping to motivate others to fight for change.

Instead, Pavol’s death launches a government investigation of his three closest friends. Štěpán finds his Olympic hockey ambitions jeopardized and must conceal his sexual orientation from authorities who could use it against him. Tomáš has already been accused of “antisocial” behavior because he struggles to follow the unwritten rules of everyday interactions, and now he must work even harder to meet the expectations of his father, the leader of the local communist party. And aspiring film director Lída, Pavol’s girlfriend, is pregnant with his child, which brands her a traitor by association and upends her all her plans.

With their futures hanging in the balance, all three must decide whether to keep struggling to survive in the country Pavol died hoping to save . . . or try to escape, together, in search of a better life.

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Notes:

There is an audiobook.

There is a kindle edition.

This book won the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature.

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Archivist Comments:

I did some research into slavic folklore surrounding firebirds for this. I’m pretty sure that’s what the bird is on the cover but I could be wrong.

This book follows the narrative of three teenagers: the first is autistic, the second is gay, and the third is pregnant.

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