Lizzie Borden had an axe
She gave her mother 40 whacks
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father 41

Were you familiar with this rhyme previously? I wasn't, but when I told a friend what I was reading she recited it to me.

This novel is historical fiction based on the murders of Andrew and Anna Borden in the late 1800s. It follows the storylines of the "baby" Lizzie, her sister Emma, the Irish house maid/servant Bridget, and a man, Benjamin, brought to town by Uncle John. I had no difficulty following the four different perspectives as it is completely clear both in layout and voice who is speaking in a given passage.

Despite some rather gory passages and a character who completely spooked me, I enjoyed this book. What I felt was lacking in the historical fiction accounts was a wrap-up to Bridget's story. I found her to be the most uncomplicated (and thus likable) character. I was left with a lot of unanswered questions about how she managed to leave Fall River, if she ever got her money back, if she ever went home to Ireland, and how she ended up in Montana.

The Lizzie Borden story has, like most true crime, always been fascinating to me. I knew the story and the rhyme of course. I even tried to watch the mini-series on TV with Christina Ricci that aired a few years ago. Unfortunately, I'm not a big Christina Ricci fan and gave up on the show. So I was super excited about this book and it did not disappoint. It's told from a few perspectives. There is Lizzie, her sister Emma, their maid Bridgett, their Uncle John and a mysterious man named Benjamin. For fear of spoilers, I won't divulge too much more. The book covers the times immediately before and after the murders of Lizzie's father Andrew and her step-mother Abby. It also spends time covering, via flashbacks, the years well before the murders and some time a decade or so after. As most know, Lizzie was acquitted and spent the remainder of her life in the town. At some point, her and her sister became estranged and never reconciled. Why? I would have liked to know more about this but I believe that's something we will never know. The other more pressing question is, did Lizzie kill her Dad and step-mother? I've always felt that she did and this book didn't do anything to change my mind. I don't think it was aiming to do so. It did give lots of really interesting information about the other people in the Borden household and planted seeds that there may have been other people involved. At the very least, there was cause for Mr. Borden and Abby to be disliked by more people than just Lizzie. In any case, I had a hard time putting the book down. It was an addicting read.

Interesting and disturbing, with a different writing style. Some people will love this book, and some will really dislike it. I’m somewhat in the middle.
See What I Have Done tells the story of Lizzie Borden and the murders of her father and stepmother in August 1892. August 4, 1892 to be exact! Before reading See What I Have Done, I just had a vague recollection of the story, pretty much just because of the rhyme that starts out with “Lizzie Borden took an axe”, so much of this story was new information for me. I stayed away from the Internet and didn’t look anything up about the facts of the murders until after I finished the book, and now I can say that Sarah Schmidt did a lot of research about the murders and the family, and her version of events is entirely plausible. I liked reading about the murders online and seeing how Schmidt wove certain details into her story.
Told from multiple POVs, we hear from Lizzie, Lizzie’s sister Emma, their maid Bridget, and a man named Benjamin, who is hired by the girl’s uncle “to take care of a problem”. The voices are all distinct, with Lizzie being the most compelling for me. Lizzie is an unreliable narrator, which is something I love, so I was drawn to Lizzie’s sections, as bizarre as they were. Lizzie’s sister, Emma, and also their maid, Bridget, are told in a more straight-forward way, although there is an element of back-and-forth in time (from the day of the murders to events that happen days and years before) that make it confusing sometimes. We also get to see into the mind of Benjamin, a drifter, and his sections were the worst for me. Benjamin is, uh, oddly fascinated with blood and bodies (so is Lizzie to an extent), and some of his sections were definitely gross and downright creepy. Whenever I read his sections, I was just cringing at all of the different images.

Repetitive phrasing is used throughout the book, and this type of writing is not for everyone. Sometimes this style really irritated me and I couldn’t tell if it was a typo or intentional, sometimes I could ignore it, and other times I really enjoyed it and felt it brought almost a musicality to the text. Here are some examples, and keep in mind these quotes are from an ARC, so might be different in the published version:
“The clock on the mantel ticked ticked.” (This sentence is sprinkled throughout the entire book, and I counted it being used 22 times.)
“My heart beat nightmares, gallop, gallop,”
“Bridget came down, brought with her the smell of decayed meaty-meat.”
“I thought of Father, my stomach growled hunger and I went to the pail of water by the well, let my hands sink into the cool sip sip.”
“The sounds of pigeon feet tacky-tacked across the roof and I thought of Father.”
“Over there, men wearing rabbit-felt fedoras sat in circles drinking mud-heavy coffee. Over there, girls dressed in Virginlaced communion. Over there, three people reading. Over there, pigeons shaking out wings, pecking seed. How I wanted one to take home. Over there, over there, over there.”
“There were voices in the sitting room, voices in the kitchen, voices above me a muffle-muffle and dragging feet.”
‘It’s best you stay downstairs with us, miss,’ the officer said, gobble, gobble, gobble.”
“I lay on my bed, rolled over and looked at my family, heard their voices in my ear, the sweet singing of ‘Noreen Bawn’, their sweet goodbyes before I took to the ship. I hummed along. I hummed along, my throat tight and homesick, my cheeks wet. I hummed along, kept my family close.”
“She sniffed the air, said, ‘What on God’s earth is that smell?’ She went back to the kitchen. Sniff, sniff. She went into the sitting room. Sniff, sniff.”

So, if this type of writing style doesn’t bother you, then you might really love this book, as it does have a more literary feel than most historical fiction does. I went back and forth with this technique, and am still not entirely sure how I feel about it. Sometimes it was a bit much, other times I felt it really worked.
There is a feeling of uneasiness and suspicion that permeates this book. The Borden’s are an odd family, and there is a definite cloud of darkness that hangs over the Borden house. Some abuses are hinted at, others I can only infer, and this really contributed to the sense I had while reading that something is very, very wrong in the Borden house.
I can’t really recommend this book to everyone as there were scenes that were incredibly disturbing and downright gross, but I was never bored while reading this. The characters are fascinating, Lizzie especially, but they are all so unlikeable that I didn’t care about any of them.

Bottom Line: Fascinating and disturbing. The literary style is not for everyone.

Deliciously creepy! A haunting spin on the famous story of Lizzie Borden.

This book is about as gruesome as you would expect a book about ax murders to be. A lot of blood and gore and vomit (SO much vomit...). Everyone knows the story about Lizzie Borden (Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one.) but there's never been any conclusive evidence about who actually murdered the Bordens (my money's on Lizzie.) This book is a fictional take on what the author thinks may have happened, and it's fantastic. A bit nauseating at times, but it was so hard to put down! If you can get past the gore, it's a great read!!

“Night carved out the moon. Things became quiet.”

A clever and unsettling fictional portrayal of the infamous Lizzie Borden and the 1892 axe murders in Fall River, Massachusetts.

We may not remember all of the details of the crime. We may not remember all the details of the trial. But we all remember the dark chant: “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.“

But did Lizzie kill her stepmother Abby and father Andrew? Told by four different 4 narrators Lizzie, Emma, Brigit and Ben this gritty tale takes us into the cellular level of Lizzie and her dysfunctional family relationships. The facts are the murders. But there is inconclusive evidence of who committed the crime. A macabre journey of senses, murder, vomit, and gore. This is a well written historical novel for the not so faint heart. I highly recommend this daring novel by Sarah Schmidt.

Thank you, NetGalley and Atlantic Grove for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

DNF 34%. I'm fascinated by the figure of Lizzie Borden but this book failed to grab my full attention, I'm 34% in, I think that is a lot of failure. The multiple POVs alternating between timelines was distracting and also didn't make me feel connected to any of the characters, I couldn't differentiate them and also didn't care for them at all. Shame, I've seen people raving about this one.

The narrative felt a bit discombobulated at times, but a book about Lizzie Borden done well in my eyes.

I'm ashamed to admit I know way too much about true crime and unsolved murders. I've read articles, listened to podcasts, and even watched a scripted series on Netflix on the Borden story so I have a lot of referential knowledge on this case. This is fiction, though. Sarah Schmidt took the infamous case of Lizzie Borden and imagined the story from within the household on the day of the murders. We get alternating narrarators (Lizzie, her sister, her father, the maid, the uncle) giving minute by minute accounts of what they were doing that day. Boy is this family weird. The inner thoughts of each of them, along with their dialog, is creepy even if you know how the story ends!

For those who don't know the story, be prepared for some pretty sick stuff. I am a bit desensitized so the gory details don't bother me anymore. Just know that this involves ax murder and it is not for the faint of heart. Schmidt managed to write a decent fictional story that feels like true crime. If you like historical fiction with a little gore then you'll probably like it. I only gave it 3 stars because it didn't have that wow factor for me.

I did not like this book at all. I'm a huge historical fiction and crime fan but I couldn't get into this one. I don't know how it's possible to make Lizzie Borden boring but this was about as exciting as reading a calculus textbook. It was very descriptive about everything which is fine except there was so much detail about vomit and things I just don't need repeated detail about. Over and over. I started skimming at 80% because I lost interest and couldn't give it any more of my time. When reading gets painful it's time to move on!

Thanks to Netgalley, Hatchette, and Sarah Schmidt for this ARC. I didn't know much about Lizxie Borden or her family, so this was a great for me go read this. Why did I feel sorry for Lizzie? But I did, for both her and her sister, as I never knew her father was so mean nor her past family relations were so crazy ! I would have loved to read more about the afterwards of their life, not just the summary of their deaths. I would reccommed this to my book club as I think there would be a great conversation ! Reviews in Goodreads, Amazon, and FB.

Lizzie Borden -- just hearing that name makes most people shiver. What happened on that fateful day in 1892 continues to fascinate even in the year 2017. But still to this day, no one is 100% sure exactly what happened, and Lizzie herself was never convicted of the brutal murder of her father, Andrew Borden, and his wife, Abby.

Sarah Schmidt's See What I Have Done attempts to make sense of the gruesome event in Fall River, Massachusetts. The story goes back and forth in time and is told from four viewpoints: Lizzie's, her sister Emma's, housemaid Bridget's, and perceived stranger Benjamin's. The strongest voice here is Bridget's, who offers a "fly on the wall" perspective that's the most interesting. Schmidt strongly emphasizes the senses in her writing, which works in some instances but seems to bog down the novel in other ways. For example, her obsession with minute details such as rotten mutton stew makes the book lose momentum, at least for me.

Schmidt is surely a talented writer, but I'm not understanding the rabidly high reviews for this one (as they say in books, to each his own). It's a solid debut novel but not a slam dunk.

MY REVIEW - 3.5

I am pretty fascinated by the Lizzie Borden case. I think the fact that it has been unsolved, and probably will forever remain as such that makes it so compelling. And fiction based on the case has always been of interest to me, because I love to read different authors' takes on what may have happened. To read different accounts of who Lizzie might have been, who her family might have been. The psychology surrounding the case is endlessly intriguing, and makes for a pretty great read.

In this particular Lizzie Borden book, we see the perspectives from several of the key players in the case. They're shown mainly in flashback form, both leading up to the murders and afterward. I enjoyed the varying perspectives, as they kept the mystery going. It was also interesting how the author portrayed Lizzie- which I won't get into because that would be spoilery.

The main problem I had with the book is that it often seemed quite slow. There were large chunks that I felt like nothing was really being revealed, nothing was happening.

Bottom Line: While I enjoyed getting into the minds of some of the players in the Borden case, I do wish the stakes had seemed higher, that there had been more revelations.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Grove Atlantic Monthly Press for providing me with an Advanced Review Copy of this peculiar book. It is interesting that Lizzie and her axe continue to capture imaginations more than a century after those murders. I credit the rhyme in entirety. In choosing to tell the story in first person vignettes, while cranking up the visceral craziness, the author relies on voices that aren't adequately differentiated in voice or tone. One of the character's inner voice is unbelievably poetic and casts doubt on all the others While the Borden drama makes for good press, ultimately the story of an unsolved murder at that time might have been better because the details are precise and engaging.

Lizzie Borden took an ax
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.


If you are like me, this is a rhyme you are familiar with from childhood, so I was eager to read Sarah Schmidt's account of one of the most gruesome and bloody murders in American history. Oh, and I admit that I have a penchant for serial killers and gruesome real-life murders, fictional or real life, and have spent way too much time over the years reading about the facts of the Lizzie Borden murders and trial. So, I really wanted to read how the account was portrayed in See What I Have Done! In her stunning debut novel, I love how Schmidt gives an excellent fictionalized account of the real-life Borden murders by using historical research, forensic detail, and a documented timeline that she includes at the end of the book to seamlessly recreate that fateful morning of August 4, 1892 and then, briefly touches on the events of Lizzie's trial and acquittal one year later.

See What I Have Done is a very unnerving and disconcerting study of a psychologically damaged and dysfunctional family. It also explores themes of love, hate, codependency, emotional abuse, independence, and mental instability. Instead of being plot driven, the novel is very character driven and is told by four different narrators: Lizzie, her sister Emma, their Irish housekeeper Bridget, and Benjamin, a nefarious man hired by the Borden sisters' Uncle John "to handle" Mr. Borden because of his mistreatment of his daughter. Each of the four narrators have completely distinct personalities and give very detailed accounts of their memories of the day the murder occurred and the day leading up to the murder, as well as memories of the past.

I will say that as wonderful a writer that Schmidt is that I thought in some places some of her narratives were a bit jumpy and all over the place since she would have a character right in the middle of a thought or conversation and suddenly their thoughts would flashback to the past, or they would have a random thought completely unrelated to the narrative they were giving. It was a bit jarring because they would then just suddenly return back to the point in the narrative where hey were before. Other readers may not have an issue with the narrative being choppy and jumpy in places, but I thought it could have flowed better. However, it is just a minor issue that I had, and Schmidt is overall an excellent writer.

Lizzie's perspective is the one we hear the most, and it is very troubling, starkly vivid, and confusing. She is one of the most unreliable narrators I have ever encountered in a novel. Not only does she have fragmented thoughts about the morning of the murder, but she seems way too calm and excited that a murder has happened. She wants to be with the dead bodies. See them. Touch them. Kiss her dead father's cuts. Lick the blood that is on her hands from where she discovered her father's body. This is very abnormal behavior for someone no matter if she did or did not commit the murders, Then the more we observe Lizzie, we see her as a quite manipulative and disturbed young woman. Spiteful. Vindictive. Spoiled. Tempestuous. Codependent. Petulant. Immature. Childish. All of those are fitting descriptions for Lizzie based on her characterization by Schmidt, which was quite excellent and in depth. It's very possible based on Lizzie's behavior that she was mentally ill or suffering from a personality disorder. Two questions continued to cross my mind while reading the book: did Lizzie commit the murders, and should she be committed to a psych ward? Still, there several occasions in the narrative where you absolutely cannot help feel sorry for Lizzie since Mr. Borden is characterized as a brute and tyrant towards his daughters and Abby as a spiteful and unloving stepmother. Also, Schmidt does present possible motives for their murders, especially when she includes the terrible pigeon scene (no, I'm not spoiling it by telling you!), which is historically accurate and was included in the trial records. Wow, though! Isn't that one amazing cover with the pigeon on it....it's gothic, beautiful, and creepy all at once!

Emma, however, is the sister I felt the sorriest for since she was stuck in this very strange, disturbing codependent relationship with Lizzie. Bitterness and her longingness to escape her family flow off the pages. Her feelings of responsibility towards Lizzie only enables Lizzie's infantile and disturbing behavior. It's quite obvious that Emma fears Lizzie murdered their parents, questions her about it, and is even scared of her to an extent, but Emma stays by her side through her arrest and acquittal since Emma did promise their mother on her deathbed to care for her much younger sister. However, her bitterness towards Lizzie, her dad, and Abby makes her almost as unreliable narrator as Lizzie. At one point I suspected her for the murders except for the fact she had an alibi by not being home. Or did she? Could she have snuck in the house while everyone thought she was a few miles away? After all, she had a key to the always locked house, and she strongly craved independence from her father and had always hated Mrs. Borden. Really, everyone in the novel is suspect.

Benjamin and Bridget, the other two narrators, were quite opposites. Benjamin was not a favorite of mine at all, and I could have done without his addition to the story although his perspective is there to offer another suspect to throw suspicion off of Lizzie who was not only hiding in the house at the time the murders occurred but one who offers a feasible solution to what happened to the murder weapon that was never discovered by the police.

Bridget was perhaps the most reliable and normal of all the narrators since she I suppose the only normal person in the book! She only wanted to move back to live with her family in Ireland and had been saving her wages the entire she had been working for the Bordens just to return home. Yet, she disliked all the Borden's, and Schmidt gave her a nice motive. Schmidt throws red herrings in the novel, but Bridget clearly thought Lizzie committed the crime. It's clearly up to the reader to decide which character's narrative is the truth, or the truth in their opinion!

See What I Have Done is told in a very disturbing yet evocative and eerie manner. The vibe of the entire novel is creepy without being overly suspenseful. Perhaps the lack of suspense is because you know going into the story who supposedly committed the murders. However, the novel is almost gothic in the disturbing way it is told, which is an excellent way to write a novel of a graphic and gory real-life murder that occurred in the late nineteenth century. What an excellent move by Schmidt! Another thing Schmidt did so well was to write her prose in such a way that the reader's senses of smell, taste, and touch are completely overloaded. Visceral and evocative is the best way that I can describe the way Schmidt describes the smells, tastes, and sense of touches in the books. This is not a book for the faint of heart with its almost overly vivid descriptions of the smells and tastes of days old rotten mutton soup, the smell and taste of overripe and sticky pears, the metallic smell of blood, and the putridness of vomit. It's such a sensory overload that you feel sick at several points in the book.

I highly recommend Schmidt's debut to anyone who loves crime novels, real-life murder mysteries, or historical fiction. It's an enthralling albeit unsettling read.

**Thank you to NetGalley, Atlantic Monthly Press, and Sarah Schmidt for an eARC to read in exchange for my fair and honest review. **

This book had so much potential. I read the synopsis and knew I wanted to give it a try. It just didn't quite hold my attention. I kept taking breaks from it, not sure if I wanted to give it another try. The story was so close to being great, it just didn't come full circle and moved much to slowly.

The thing I did like about this book was the amount of description. As I was reading, I could feel the atmosphere within the Borden household. I could emphasize with Brigitte about having to live with this dysfunctional family. So, it definitely was not all bad by any means. The story just got lost somewhere along the way.

I really enjoyed getting to know Lizzie and her strangeness. I found the friend of the uncle John a bit unbelievable but other wise loved the story. It seems unlikely that any one other that Lizzie committed the murders.

One for the DNF pile. I can't get into it at all, every time I pick it up I find myself becoming bored and I have to try and force myself to keep reading in the hope that it will improve.

I just don't care for the characters. There's nothing likeable about them in the slightest and I honestly couldn't care less what happens to them or where their stories are heading. I'm not a fan of the writing style either. Definitely not a book for me.

It's taken me 5 days to read 26%, time to admit defeat.

Truly chilling -- even if you think you're already familiar with the story.

Fictional retelling of the story we all know so well. Lizzie, her sister Emma, the maid Bridget and an outsider named Benjamin tell their version of events prior and following the brutal murders of Andrew Borden and his wife Abby, the sister's stepmother. Hooked me in from the first sentence and wouldn't let me go. Makes me rethink everything I thought I knew about the murders. Well written and heavily researched. Thanks to Net Galley for the ARC.