While I found the writing to be excellent and lush, I found the actual story to be mediocre and boring.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital ARC of this book. This book is true to its title description. The reader won't be disappointed when reading this book.

We all know the song about Lizzie Borden - but do we know the truth to what happened?

I always find it so interesting, retelling and perspectives of crimes that occurred decades ago before the technology and investigative practices we have now.

Interesting perspective, made me look at the the "true" story slightly different.

The writing was not that great or captivating, and I tried hard to finish the book and not add it my DNF list after 10 pages.

Although I'd heard of Lizzie Borden, I wasn't familiar with the whole story of the murders or how infamous she is in the USA.
Sarah Scmidt therefore bought the whole sordid episode to life for me with her visceral writing and bloodsoaked prose. I felt the heat, the metallic tang of blood and the sourness of the food and the claustrophobic household.
The use of different, usually unreliable, narrators is nothing new, but worked well in this book. Lizzie, sister Emma, uncle John, maid Bridget and, less effectively I felt, hired killer Benjamin combined to highlight family rifts and motives for murder. Fledgling methods of detective work and autopsies were well covered, including the very bizarre decapitation of the bodies and the subsequent use of Abby and Andrews skulls at the trial.! The status of relatively well off women in the 19th century was also demonstrated especially as Lizzie was acquitted because a woman couldnt have done such a thing. I note there is a new film coming out in 2017 discovering the story so it will be interesting to compare the assumptions of guilt in the two genres

Great fictional book about a very famous non-fiction murder. Can anyone ever get enough of Lizzie Borden stories. I think a good writer could manage to put Lizzie Borden in every genre and quite possibly come up with a hit novel. Hmmm, waiting on Lizzie in a Sci-Fi, or Zombie novel... LOL

The story is told from alternating points of view, from the famous sisters Lizzie and Emma Borden, the maid, Bridgette and from 2 other characters. The characters, locations, the sights, sounds, smells... are vividly described and brought to life in this book. For a while I thought, wow, this entire family is nothing but nut-jobs! Who actually knows? Maybe they were!

The book takes the reader back to 1892 and explores some very unusual possibilities. The book also brings to [fictional] life some very weird family dynamics.

There were several phrases written in the book that I never could really figure out what they meant. I wondered if these were common phrases spoken in the late 1800's. It made it a little hard to follow at times.

And … was it just me? Did anyone else find it creepy weird how Lizzie was ALWAYS putting other people's fingers and HAIR in her mouth and as she described... “tasting them” < “tasting mother” .

This book will keep you guessing all the way through.

I have a love for history and always enjoyed the story of Lizzie Borden, so when I heard about this novel I was thrilled to read it plus the cover is so cute.
Well, the cover was the only thing I liked about this book. The premise was interesting, a new and interesting look at the story, even giving us the point of view of Emma, Lizzie sister, and Bridget, the Bordens maid. Some people might not be bothered by this, but it irked me to no end when authors of historical fiction give their characters modern values. No respectable women in the 1800's, none whatsoever, would allow a man who is not her husband, father, or doctor into her room, let alone her house unchaperoned. I tried to read on after that, I really did try but I could not finish. I hate reviewing books I didn't finish, and never really not finished a book, but I got this book from NetGalley and promised a review.

I tried with this one. I think I started it 3 different times hoping that each time would be the time that I became interested enough...but it didn't happen. I finally pushed through and while it wasn't horrible it just didn't feel like a put together story for me. I didn't get all the motives of all the characters. It was just an ok for me.

I think most people are familiar with the Borden case but this book certainly puts an interesting spin on it. Lizzie was an unreliable narrator throughout the whole story, but particularly towards the end. This made the book even more interesting to read when you weren't sure exactly what to believe. The first half of the story was quite slow paced and I struggled to get in to it - I enjoyed the second half a lot more although slightly confusing at times. Even so it was well written and I enjoyed getting to know the case a bit more!

I was over-the-moon excited for this book based on the premise. At the end of the day I don't think it lived up to my expectations, but it was still a good read. I thought Lizzie's character was well-done, but often the other characters all sounded the same to me. I think I would have preferred a more straightforward plot structure with less jumping around, but that's personal preference. I would still recommend this book to others.

Just an okay read... great characterization of our four narrators, but the story really dragged at the end with all this reminiscing. Since the story is based in fact, I felt that some of this intense detail and going-over of facts could've been left out.

If you are a fan of true crime, this book is for you. See What I Have Done got me on the edge of my seat during the whole time, although I already knew the story of the ax murders previous to reading the book. It is so gripping and it sent a chill down my spine every time I thought the story it’s based on was real. Honestly, it felt like reading all the articles about the case, plus filling the blank spaces our imaginations tend to try and fill out. What goes through the head of someone who commits a crime like that? See What I Have Done tells you.

I've always been fascinated with Lizzie Borden's story, but this book landed in my DNF pile after about 58 percent on my Kindle. The pacing was so excruciatingly slow that I had to give it up. I wanted to like it -- really, I did -- but I couldn't make it all the way through.

See What I Have Done is an interpretation of the Lizzie Borden case from 1892. On August 4th, the housemaid Bridget hears Lizzie screaming: "Someone has killed father!" and from that scene the whole plot develops.

The book follows several characters, their POVs and perspectives surrounding the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden. Where's the murder weapon? Had someone broke in? Who had motives? There's a lot of unanswered questions and with every new chapter the author subtlety shows us why we should think someone did it and then why he/she is innocent.

I had never heard of the Borden mystery before reading this so it was all brand new to me. Although the ARC has some formatting issues that slowed down my reading, I really enjoyed how the story was structured.

Lizzie Borden is... A character. From page one I thought she was so revengeful and mad, and couldn't stop thinking that she'd make a great villain in other stories. Not that she's not in here. The way she treats and manipulates her older sister, Emma, is frustrating - at some points I just wanted to hold her down and yell to Emma: RUN, NOW! RUN AND BE FREE OF HER!

Although the story was REALLY interesting and got me interested in researching more about the original story, I thought it dragged on in a few facts and storylines that were unnecessary. Again, I don't know how much of it was taken from the original case or created by the author. Even though it's not a long book it took me a long time to read it.

It's an interesting and engaging mystery and I'd recommend it to those who are already familiar with the genre. Slow paced, but good writing.

I hadn't a hard time finishing this one, but I think that was more personal taste than anything. I am not a squeamish person, but there were some parts of this that were a bit hard for me. That being said, it was very well written, and the author definitely has talent!

I really wanted to like this book. The cover drew me in and some of the first reviews. However for me it was just too gruesome and even worst, it was downright depressing. I didn't like the main character and I just couldn't finish it. I tried at least four times and then gave up.

Since I DNF the book I don't think it would be fair to publish a review on social media since it might have a knock out ending.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this book :) I don't want to give it a star since I DNF it but the system won't allow that so I will give it one star.

Prior to reading this book I was unaware that it was a historical retelling of the 1892 Borden axe murderers, it was only after I had finished reading the book (still a bit confused) that I looked it up and clarified points of the book that I was still a bit confuddled by. I must admit I didn’t really enjoy this book and I found it really hard to get in to. It was a bit gruesome for my liking and jumped around a bit too much between characters dialogue and their thoughts. I did however appreciate the timeline at the end of the book which helped to recap things for me and put things in place. Overall not my cup of tea.

The cover of this book is what grabbed me. Great, eye catching cover. The plot was also intriguing. To hear a story about Lizzie Borden and what might have possessed her to kill her parents sounded really interesting. Between the constant examples of what an awful person she was and the continuous over explanations of rotten food, vomit, and blood, this book was just unenjoyable at times.

In the novel See What I Have Done (2017), we are brought inside the dysfunctional household of the Border family, only to be trapped, along with the characters, in a suffocating atmosphere of sweat, sweltering heat, mutilated pigeons, rotten food, a plate of leftovers, and ripening fruit. It’s claustrophobic. It’s salty, dirty, smeared in blood. It’s about to explode.

The novel is a fictionalized account of the case of Lizzie Borden, one of the most notorious unsolved true crime mysteries. On the morning of 4th August 1892, in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew Borden and his second wife Abby were murdered with a hatchet in their home. Andrew’s youngest daughter, the 32-year-old Lizzie, was the first person to find the mutilated bodies. Andrew’s oldest daughter Emma, was away from home at the time. The Irish maid, Bridget Sullivan, was also in the house, and John, Andrew’s first wife brother, had been an overnight guest. Lizzie, the main suspect of having committed the two murders, was arrested, tried and acquitted by a jury unable to believe that a woman could do such a thing.

Many theories about the possible murderers have been advanced over time: a robber might have broken in the house; the maid might have killed the couple out of revenge for being badly treated; Emma might have committed the crime, after having established an alibi at Fairhaven; John, the girl’s uncle, who seldom visited, could have murdered the couple because of disputes over the family’s patrimony; there were also evidence that the family had been sick on the previous days, probably because of poison; the girls and their uncle might have planned everything, acting in some sort of collusion. Lizzie remains the main suspect though: she had a strained relationship with her stepmother, and believed Abby was after Andrew’s money; Lizzie might have resented her domineering father’s tight rein on the household, and, as a spinster, might have felt trapped; or, finally, the fact that Andrew had recently slaughtered her pet pigeons might have been the last straw, triggering her thirst for revenge.

The author explores each of these possibilities. The events in the household unfold in first person narration, in alternating perspectives, through the voices of the main characters, lurching back and forth between the day of the murder, the day leading up to it, and, briefly, its aftermath. All of the narrators are unreliable: Lizzie is at times childish, at times fully aware of what is happening; Emma is resentful of both her father and her sister, and provides a glimpse into their past; the maid Bridget holds a grudge against Abby; and the fictional character Benjamin, an outsider hired by the girls’ uncle to help solve a problem with Andrew, is clearly a deranged man.

The narration moves in a fragmented way between each of the four characters, and each event is examined from multiple perspectives, gathering new and often contradictory meanings at each turn. While Lizzie’s voice is impressionistic, Emma is sharp – and both are immersed in anger and frustration. Bridget and Benjamin, as outsiders who get very close to the household, provide an emotionally distanced perspective of the events, commenting them from a vantage point of view. The narrators’ voices seem to project and blur one another.

After the death of their mother, Emma assumes the task of caring for her emotionally instable and controlling sister. The girls love and hate each other at the same time. While sharing a symbiotic connection, they also compete for their father’s love and attention. Both Emma and Lizzie regard as a betrayal Andrew’s marriage to Abby – but Lizzie is more successful in faking affection when necessary.

The fact that Andrew closely controls every aspect of the girl’s lives – and keeps all the doors and windows tightly locked for fear of criminals – only intensifies the feeling of entrapment, of being stuck in life or confined in a place full of people one hates. Emma, Lizzie, Bridget, Abby, even the reader – everyone is eager to get out of this house as soon as possible. This house is a trap about to burst open, exposing to the public eye the family’s very dirty laundry.

The author is not so much interested in exploring the question of who may have committed the crime, as in portraying a deeply dysfunctional family. At the core of the novel, we find a tangle of failed relationships, supressed emotions, madness, ambition, unfulfilled desires, and rebellion.

The book reminded me of Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (2013). As Kent’s debut, Schmidt's also deals with the reimagined version of a true crime, told through different perspectives. Both novels draw a complex portrayal of the main female character, by giving those characters a voice, and making use of poetic devices. Differently from Kent’s book, though, Schmidt's novel seeks no redemption, and the author is not interested in imagining a new version of what happened: on the contrary, she plunges deeply into the raw violence of the events of the Borden case; she tests the place where this violence might have bordered on love, and where love turned into rotten fruit – the mouths “thick with lost conversation”.

The strongest aspect of the book, for me, is Schmidt's writing style, infused with sound and smell and touch, in a sensory overload that forces us into feeling claustrophobic. The author builds momentum by obsessively repeating words, like in a fever; she makes use of alliterations (“Side by side our bodies stitched together and I felt like I was drowning in salt and sweat”) and references to small sounds (like the birds walking on the roof) so as to make the paragraphs crackle with tension; Schmidt makes palpable the heat, the hate, the disgust; she probes the expectations about what women are capable of.

Despite the sweltering heat, the house is kept tight shut. Inside, rage is simmering, food is rotting, sweat and salt and blood are running, the walls are closing in on everyone, “air coming in and out like an ocean tide, smelling of old meat and butter”. The clock is ticking, we hear birds walking on the roof, voices beating against our ear, something scraping, someone swallowing, a thud, and then another. A body trembling, “a landslide of feeling.” Pears are ripening in the garden, falling from the tree, swelling with sugar. We smell something rancid, we taste salt, someone vomits, everyone stinks, “the smell of sour yoghurt snaking out from somewhere inside her”. Someone pokes the finger into sweaty, open flesh – “soft skin opened like a rock; hard underneath hard underneath cold”. Something has gone sour, and Schmidt forces us to hold it in our mouths, trapped.