A startingly beautiful book jacket design leads the reader into the era, 1907, when the Panama Canal was being built. Like a good reporter, the author’s focus is not on the engineering or mechanics of the Canal, but on the people. These are the ones who came here to make their fortune, cure the endemic illnesses, seek adventure, to help their families at home, or to make a stand for the land that has always been part of their heritage. Each person has a story that often melds into another’s in unexpected ways that propel the plot. Lots of history but easily learned and appreciated as each person is developed. Descriptions of the land, marketplace, digging, and journeys are well told. The great divide is not only the canal but the divide of racism, classism, economics, and sexism that infiltrates the experience of the people who lived then. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars--

The Great Divide is a beautiful work of fiction that explores the interwoven lives of a cast of characters all present and somehow involved in the digging of the Culebra Cut through the mountains of Panama for the would-be Panama Canal.

-A white American doctor come to cure malaria and his restless former-botanist wife.

-An intrepid young girl from Barbados who travels as a stowaway hoping to find work in Panama to save her ailing sister.

-Their determined Barbadian mother who took her daughters away from the plantation of their birth where their ancestors were enslaved.

-An aging fisherman, beset by tragedy and struggling to connect with his young adult son, who is among the few Panamanians to take work on the canal.

-A fish merchant and his vociferous wife set on resisting colonial forces by protesting plans to relocate the beloved town she grew up in to build a dam.

While I enjoyed the prose and many of the themes immensely, I will say that I would have liked more of a plot. This book it about the characters and capturing this one moment and its implications. It meanders slowly through the inner thoughts and daily lives of its characters. I did especially love the small doses of everyday magical realism sprinkled throughout. By having a bird's eye view of the connections between characters, the reader gets to delight in the role that coincidence and intuition plays in their lives.

Many thanks to Ecco and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Delighted by this historical fiction set in early 1900’s Panama during the building of the canal. The setting was completely new to me but the heart of they story was completely within the cast of characters. I was invested in each of their stories. I read this during an incredibly busy time and it kept my attention well and I always wanted to pick it up to continue.

This is the March @readwithjenna pick. Visiting the Panama Canal is actually on my bucket list and this historical fiction about the construction of the canal was fascinating.
Huge thank you to @netgalley @harper.audio and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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I really enjoyed reading "The Great Divide". The story was interesting as I knew little about the building of the Panama Canal for the people's perspectives.

Requested THE GREAT DIVIDE because of the gorgeous cover, but stayed for the story! As someone who loves historical fiction, it's always nice to get a story that takes place in a time period that you don't know much about -- and that was definitely the case here. I learned so much about the history of the Panama Canal during this read and I loved it.

Definitely will recommend to readers that:
- enjoy historical fiction
- like multiple POVs

I really enjoyed this book. It seems to be more common lately for books to be written in this structure: different characters are telling their stories in the chapters, and there is a link between them that you begin to see. I liked getting all the perspectives from different characters, as well as learning about some of the history of the building of the Panama Canal. I would have liked even more history, as one of my favorite things about historical fiction is learning about events I had little or no knowledge about. Easy to read, well written (the chapter where Francisco goes down into the canal building was beautifully written and so poignant).

As momentous as the construction of the Panama Canal was at the time, I feel like it is a relatively overlooked piece of history. Even more so, the characters and viewpoints that Christina Henriquez highlights in this novel are certainly not the stories that have typically been told. That being said, this novel brings life to a unique part of history through the perspectives of the most overlooked, yet in most cases most central, people in that history. Henriquez tells these narratives through well developed characters, as she weaves together their stories. I really liked the perspective and history that this fictional novel was able to provide and I would recommend this book to all readers, but especially fans of historical fiction.

Henriquez has written a fabulous book, packed with riveting characters who represent the variety of people responsible for building (and protesting) the Panama Canal. Having researched the country during era Henriquez covers, I read the novel with heightened interest. Henriquez's facts are accurate, and more significantly, she has captured the spirit of the place and time. She ties up some of her subplots to just the right extent toward the end of the novel, resisting the urge to tie up everything perfectly. I particularly appreciated her modest but effective use of magical realism--enough to add a distinctive voice but not so much that it becomes a deterrent to readers like me.

A moving portrait of a historical event you don't see often in novels, The Great Divide is beautifully crafted. Book clubs are going to want to jump on this—there's a lot to discuss. There are a lot of characters, but readers will be truly captivated by them and invested in their lives.

The Gread Divide A historical fiction novel centered around the building of the Panama Canal starting in 1907.

The Great Divide is a historical fiction novel centered around 3 main characters:
Omar-a 17 year old who leaves home despite his father's wishes to build the canal and his fisherman father, Francisco.
Ada Bunting, a young girl from Barbados, who leaves behind her mother and medically fragile sister in need of surgery to get on a ship to go to the Panama area for work in hopes of sending the money back to them.
A husband and wife from Tennessee who go to the area for the scientist husband to study malaria.

Positives:
Well developed storylines that eventually all connect together
A satisying conclusion
I learned a bit about the area and time period that I did not know before

Negatives:
I did not learn a lot about the building of the structure and the area.
There were a lot of characters to keep track of which is not necessarily a bad thing but just something to be aware of. I had them all written down.

I think most people will be divide on the rating and feelings on this one. Overall for me it was an enjoyable read but it was lacking that extra something special. I enjoyed the various storylines and points of view but it won't be a standout.

The Great Divide was my first book to read by Cristina Henriquez. I had read so many great reviews about the book that I was anxious to read it for myself. Henriquez definitely did a massive amount of research bringing this story to life. I enjoyed the characters and the historical setting.

3.5 rounded up. This novel brings welcome attention and perspective to a significant historical event - the creation of the Panama Canal and the US's related interventions in Central America. Characters from a variety of countries came together for a huge and frequently deadly project; one of the books strengths is including the great variety of motivations and challenges they each faced. I especially appreciated the brief overview of Panamanian nationhood and how it was impacted by other countries' motives.
The flip side of having so many diverse perspectives is that the book sometimes gets bogged down in the number of characters and their backstories. Some who wind up being instruments of the plot unnecessarily get as much interiority as some main characters. This would be a stronger story if that was streamlined and essential elements of different actors were shown instead of told.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

The focus of this historical novel is on the people who built the Panama Canal not on the technology. I greatly appreciate writers, like Henriquez, who transport us to a different place and introduce us to believable characters. Workers came from all over the world to build the Canal and hopefully make their fortune, which would be defined by those individuals in very different ways. There are several story lines and they intersect and inform one another. ‘The Great Divide’ is a beautifully constructed work, which left me with a much deeper understanding of the dangers and pitfall of ‘progress’ and the price ordinary people sometimes pay. This is an excellent book club selection. Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for an advanced readers copy of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

It’s 1907 and the Panama Canal is under construction. While this massive creation is the background, and the literal divide in Panama, it’s the stories and characters that Henriquez writes that metaphorically demonstrate the different divides we might encounter in life. The divides between life and death, happiness and grief, trust and betrayal and more are illustrated by Ada, Omar, Francisco, John, and more.

The story takes a while to get started, and there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but readers will still get a lot out of the writing.

Thanks to NetGalley for an advanced review copy.

This was a beautifully written story about the lengths people will go to protect themselves, their family, and their culture in the face of colonialism. While I do believe this was very tame in the sense that no one REALLY got in trouble for their actions, it was still important to see such strong Cental American, Black, and Carribean people. It was really cool to see how so many character's independent lives intertwine to tell this story. The author did a great job making each character's voice extremely different, making the reading experience easier since it jumps around between them. She also did a great job with the setting, I have never been to Panema but the descriptions of the country were obviously written with such love and care for detail.

The Great Divide is a great Historical Fiction novel that takes place during the creation of the Panama Canal. I love that Henriquez writes about a period of time not conventionally written about in historical fiction. The book's format is a portrait of everyday people and how they connect to the building of the canal.

You will love this novel if you are a fan of character driven stories. My favorite character was that of Ava Bunting an 16 year-old stowaway who traveled from Barbados to Panama to find work to raise money for her sick sister's surgery.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this great novel.

4.25 stars

I picked this one up because I know nothing about how the Panama Canal came to be. I thought it was going to be more about the building of it but this one captured the people that were around it at the time and their struggles instead. So not quite what I had hoped but still an okay read.

Not one to remember geography, this book was THAT good that I looked over several maps to find the Panama Canal. The Great Divide is about several unrelated characters that travel to Panama to begin work on the Panama Canal. Each person was from different areas of the world, had nothing in common except for the build of the Panama Canal. The stories all intertwined. The book was an easy read. The author was able to make each person standout and never once, did I become confused over who was who. I'd never really thought about the Panama Canal, malaria, mosquitos and rehousing people and villages. Interesting and exciting times. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the complimentary digital ARC. This review is my honest opinion.

Thank you to Net Galley and Ecco for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.. I have never thought much about the creation of the Panama Canal so I was very interested in reading this historical fiction book. We join the story as the creation of Panama Canal is being talked about and outsiders start coming to the area. We learn of the people who live in the area who lives will be forever changed by the the canal - moved from their homes to make way for the canal, disputes within families of those who want to make money working on the canal but contribute to the end of that way of life, racism of those who live in the area as well as those who come to work there, and the idea of those who live in the area are not Americans as defined by the US. There were a lot characters and I kind of wished that the author had just focused on a few to tell the story. The read was interesting from a historical point of view and that history doesn't really address all those who were negatively affected by the canal but I thought the story was lacking in telling a compelling character-driven perspective. Yet overall it was worth the read. 3.5 stars