Book Review: Uprising

The setting is New York, 1911. Three bold, rebellious heroines seek to bring an end to the gritty industrial system that oppresses them. But Margret Peterson Haddix's Uprising is not steampunk, really. There's no fantasy or science fiction here--just three hundred pages of cold, hard reality.

The Plot: Uprising chronicles the events leading up to the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, via fictional characters Bella, Yetta, and Jane. Bella, a newly arrived Italian immigrant, Yetta, a rebellious-to-the-core factory worker, and Jane, the bored daughter of a successful businessman (a Victorian novel cliche, I know, but actually pulled off fairly well in this case), are drawn together by their involvement in a strike at Bella and Yetta's workplace, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The three of them form an alliance, and eventually a close friendship, doomed to be put to an end by a tragic accident.

The Good Stuff: This is among the most moving books I've read, bound to get at least something of an emotional reaction from just about any reader. For all its emotional-ness, however, it's one of the few Victorian/Edwardian books I've read that takes a more or less objective look at the issues of the day. Haddix addresses the unfairness of the Gilded Age class system while portraying the factory bosses--technically the villains of the story--as humans with families and insecurities and occasional moments of kindness, and even makes strong points about the suffrage movement without falling into the Men Are Evil Trap, which is understandably easy for historical writers to fall into.

The Bad Stuff: This book is just sad. Yes, I know, I said the same thing in The Good Stuff. It's one of those books. With just about any novel about a historical disaster, it's more or less a foregone conclusion that most of the characters will die. Even so, that's almost a strength rather than a flaw; the continuous knowledge that these carefully-crafted characters are being raised for the slaughter gets quite heartbreaking at points.
At some points this seems a little forced, in a This-Author-is-Most-Definitely-Trying-to-Make-Me-Cry kind of way, but then again, it worked on me quite effectively.
The one thing that's apt to turn readers off is how overtly political it is. Mind you, said politics are of 100+ years ago, so what was extreme leftism then is pretty rational by today's standards. Even so, readers unfamiliar with turn-of-the-century politics might be unnerved by how cheerfully the word "socialism" is thrown around.

The Verdict: If you're looking for a lighthearted adventure, this isn't it. But if you're into the more anti-establishment, politically-based side of steampunk, I urge you to read it, just so long as you have a plethora of tissues on hand.