The Secrets of Lizzie Borden

The Secrets of Lizzie Borden explores the events leading up to and after the infamous murders of the Bordens.

This was one of the worst books I ever read. There was so much potential for this story. I went into it thinking I would get a glimpse of the character and psychology of Lizzie Borden and what would drive her to commit these murders. Instead it turned into a way for the author to spend over 350 pages describing in explicit detail the fetishes and unnatural desires of the main character. It is a fictional account based on a real person, but the way it was written with very little regard to the facts, I don’t know that you could even claim this as historical fiction. The murders and the trial took up maybe two or three pages, with the rest detailing her sexual deviance which did not even seem realistic considering the time period. I was so disappointed in the lack of character development. There was not one character that I could relate to or be even remotely interested in.

This quote from the book perfectly sums up how I feel, “nothing turned out the way I thought it would.”