The tagline on the cover of this book says "Three young women caught in the fire that changed America." But the book really isn't about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, even though it ends there. (Actually, it's only the last 60 of the 330 pages, despite the flyleaf copy and tagline hyping the book as being about the fire.) It's about the unionization efforts and the garment workers' strike of 1909-1910, about suffrage, about the social climate of the early 20th century, about women who believed in making a difference. The characters are realistically drawn, for the most part, but the author seems to hold them at arm's length--even moments of high emotional impact are distant and reserved. (This is pretty typical of Haddix, though, so it didn't come a big surprise.)