Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

(^^^It doesn’t count as quoting the ARC if it was written by someone else over 100 years ago *wink*)

I had zero intention of ever picking up The Girls at 17 Swann Street until I started noticing the ratings my friends were passing out to it around mid to late January. I will fully admit that I was hoping for a vibe like Girl Interrupted . . . . Only set in a home for young women with eating disorders rather than mental disorders. Amazingly, I got what I was looking for. While I fully admit I have no experience with anorexia or bulimia like the girls featured here, I will say that their struggles all came off as authentic. (And if anyone attempts to cry bullshit, I would like to remind them that no two people are alike so they might want to take a whiff of themselves.) This is not an easy read, by any stretch, both in form and substance. The former due to the fact that the author pulls no punches when it comes to delivering a wallop of emotion and the latter because it appears she also may be allergic to quotation marks and contractions.

4 Stars rather than 5 because (a) while hints were dropped regarding what made Anna feel so less than that she started starving herself, nothing was ever covered in her therapy sessions and yet somehow she eventually made grand steps towards recovery anyway, (b) choosing healing for a husband she had only been with a few years rather than for herself was a bit of a message I can’t be 100% on board with, and (c) the pacing was a little off – dragging in spots for me (especially the flashbacks), but then fast-forwarding to the ending.

Still highly recommended despite those minor issues for me.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, NetGalley!

Today is publication day for the book "The Girls at 17 Swann Street". I just finished this book and had a very hard time putting it down. The book is a hard and descriptive look at Anna's fight with anorexia and depression. Anna goes to 17 Swann Street for inpatient treatment where she meets other girls dealing with eating disorders. Reading the stories of the other girls and their struggles with eating and how Anna rationalized giving up food and then her obvious struggle to gain some weight, really helped me to understand how easy it is to get the disease and how hard to overcome it. This is a very thought provoking book and would make a great book club selection. I definitely rate this book a 5 out of 5 stars. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read this book for my honest opinion.

4.5 Stars, rounded down!

The stomachache worsened. She thought of Philippe. Who had found her pretty, just not enough. Smart and elegant, but not enough. Philippe, who had told her "I love you" and "Do you really want that slice of cake?"


This is a powerful debut Novel by Yara Zgheib and it's a story that really stirred up some emotions in me.

Anna is a twenty-six year old married woman who has moved from Paris to St. Louis to follow her husband's career. In Paris, she was a ballet dancer. She worked really hard at it but was always told, "you'd be better if you lost a few pounds." One day, Anna got injured and couldn't dance anymore. From there, the disease took over and Anna was in full anorexia mode. Anna got down to 88 pounds and her husband brings her to a treatment center. From here, we watch Anna's journey to possible recovery.

This book takes you through all the emotions: anger, sadness, loss, frustration, hopefulness, happiness, love, anxiety, etc. Anna experiences all of these emotions as well as the other girls at 17 Swan Street and you feel them while reading along. The beautiful thing about this is that there's 7 girls at 17 Swan Street and they never leave anyone alone at the table. It was almost like an unspoken sisterhood and it kept giving Anna hope throughout the story. They reminded her of all that she had to lose and why she was the luckiest girl there. It's an emotional journey but a real and raw one at that.

I connected with this book on a different level than I normally do. I do not have anorexia and I've never had an eating disorder. However, I do know how mental illesses and diseases can effect you and those around you and the tough journey you go through. I think that Anna's journey with food and treatment reminded me of mine with depression and anxiety. Life is hard. We have to do hard things, but we have so much to look forward to. There will be hard and even impossible days. We have to get to rock bottom before we can start to build back up. But never ever give up. The good days will eventually out way the bad and I can promise this: even if it doesn't seem like it now, it always gets better

This book also had a special place with me because growing up in high school my best friend was bulimic. I had an idea of what it was but this book took me through her emotional journey, that at the time when I was 17, certainly didn't understand the complexity of. I could not empathize with the mental journey back then because it was simply something that was kept quiet. I wish I would have known what I know now after reading this. I wish I could have been her Emm and been there in more ways than I was. This really opened up my eyes and made me realize how much of your life these diseases really take over.

Overall this was a great book. I read it in a day and I would have never guessed that this was a debut book. It is written in segments and can read a little choppy. I can see how that could annoy some people but I felt that it helped bring the emotion out much more and helped me feel for Anna. If you are looking for a heartfelt by raw book about women definitely pick this on up. It's out now!

Thank you to Bookishfirst and St. Martin's Press for my ARC of this book.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib is heart breaking and enlightening. It is also a beautifully written story of Anna Roux struggle with anorexia and depression. Told from Anna’s perspective the reader learns Anna’s past as well as her present time in the treatment center. Unsure but hoping this story wouldn’t have a Karen Carpenter ending, I came to become attached to the characters, Anna and the others there.

No having read much on this topic of eating disorders, I found the story insightful, enlightening and extremely personal, in that all is bared by Anna. Not a read that will soon be forgotten.

Anna has moved into bedroom # 5 at 17 Swaan Street which is an eating disorder center for women. Anna had been a dancer. Anna has books to read, places to see, babies to make, birthday cakes to taste. Anna even has unused birthday wishes to spare, Anna is twenty six -married to Matthais for three years-but her body feels like she is sixty two. So does her brain. Both are tired, irritable, and in pain. Anna doesn’t laugh much anymore. Very little is funny. Anna has anorexia. Anna is five foot four and weights eighty eight pounds. Anna’s basic problem - loss of interest in food. Loss of interest in general. Anna feels she doesn’t suffer from anorexia, she has anorexia. She knows her anorexia. Anna understands it better than the world around her. The world around her is obese at least half of it. Anna’s anorexia keeps her company since her husband works so much and they left France when he got a chance at a job in the states. Anna can control her anorexia, so she chooses it. Anna runs eighty minutes a day, builds strength for another twenty minutes. Anna keeps her caloric intake below eight hundred calories , a thousand when she in binging. Anna weights herself every morning and cries at the numbers on the scale. She cries in front of mirrors and sees fat everywhere. Everyone around Anna seems to think she has a problem. She just had to lose a little weight. She does not suffer from a sick brain. Anna suffers from a sick heart. Her husband finally tells Anna he tried to ignore she has a problem and brings her to this place. He tells Anna it's because he doesn’t want to live without her. She is his wife and he loves her. He walks into the place with her instead of having her walk in alone as she suggested. Anna is told the rules she must now follow. Anna is told she should always communicate her thoughts and feelings freely. Staff is there to validate those and redirect her behavior and by the end of treatment Anna will be cured of her eating disorder. Anna’s therapist is Katherine and she tells Katherine she does not need this session Anna said she came from a ;loving family and has a husband she adores that she sleeps with every night. No depression or trauma, at least that Anna needs or is inclined to share. No unhealed wounds from her past or skeletons in Anna’s closet that she needs to address. Anna says she is just particular about what she eats, just a little underweight. There are seven young women in the center right now. Five including Anna are anorexic , two have bulimia. Not hard to spot, they look pubescent and gaunt. Sunken eyes, and sunken faces, scarecrow thin eyes and legs, pale skin and hair, no lips. The patients aren’t women. They are missing breasts, curves, probably periods. Most are wearing children’s clothes. They look androgynous, their skin hanging in loose pockets around fragile frames. Real women have bodies, sex, lives, dinner, and families. Anna soon learns at the center most questions are really instructions in sweetened buttered disguises. Anna also learned three times refusing food meant a feeding tube. Anna remembers she had been her younger brother Camil’s protector until one day she wasn’t good enough and at seven he died from being hit by a car. Anna still had a box of camil’s childish drawings and his little white bear upstairs in bedroom number 5 under her bed. Her mother choose to end her life in their bathroom and join her son. Her father and her sister Sophia refused to speak of Camil. Anna found she forgot things as her anorexia went on but then felt what she could not remember she would not miss. One evening while visiting Matthias gets angry and asks Anna why he wasn’t enough for her to eat like she does in treatment. Anna replied you brought me here, you saved my life. She wonders if and when Matthias will stop coming to visit. Eventually Anna tells Matthias to stop coming to visit. She is finally giving up . She also refuses three meals and gets a feeding tube than she refuses to get out of bed. The next night Emm comes to Anna’s room the next morning and forces Anna to get up and not give up and to make things right with Matthias as she was cruelly hurting him now.
I loved the reality of this book. It felt like you get to see the disease of anorexia up close and personal. It felt like I really got to see the disease of anorexia as well as bulimia in real ways. What it was like to have this disease. To fight and try to win, knowing this fight would be for the rest of their lives. Also few relatively win and are cured of this horrific disease. Such a harrowing book but I was glad I read it. I loved Matthias and his love and dedication and loyalty to Anna. Yet also showed his bewilderment and his anger. I loved Anna’s father came across the ocean to the US to spend one evening with Anna. All I can say if you want to know the personal details of anorexia for the people suffering from this disease as wella s the ones who love these people read this in all it’s heartbreak, fear, struggle, fight yet times of joy and happiness. It is a harrowing read for the most part but so worth it. I highly recommend this book.

Anna was a dancer. She lived in Paris, she loved deeply, she breathed in life, and she ate with gusto. But as the years went by, things changed. She was injured and could no longer dance. She fell in love with and married Matthias, but when his job moved them from France to America, she struggled with loneliness. Although she was close to her father and sister, she still mourned the loss of her brother and mother, both taken from her when she was way too young.

As her anxiety grew, she fought it by controlling what she could—she controlled what she ate. And when that consumed her, she found herself at 17 Swann Street, in a bedroom of colors so strong she called it the Van Gogh room.

As Anna meets the other girls in the house, she learns more about her enemy anorexia and her allies in the fight against it. Her denial, her stubbornness, her determination, her mistakes, her disordered thinking, her new friends, her abandoned dreams, and her family all mix together in this story of one woman’s fight to save her own life against a deadly disease.

Yara Zgheib’s moving story of a houseful of women in an inpatient treatment center is both heart-rending and heart-warming as they stand together to try to live. The Girls of 17 Swann Street is so moving and intimate, it almost reads like a memoir, as the desolation and anxiety that Anna know all too well follow her day by day, moment by moment, through her journey to self-acceptance. Anyone wanting a better understanding of disordered eating, of living with anxiety, or of the strength of the human spirit to survive will not find a better book to read than The Girls on 17 Swann Street.

Very highly recommended for anyone who won’t be triggered by the subject matter.

Galleys for The Girls at 17 Swann Street were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.

Thank you so much to St. Martins Press and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I was hoping to feel an attachment to this story as I myself suffered from anorexia as a teenager. I luckily was able to overcome it without professional help so I could not relate with the character having to seek treatment at a facility.

This book is about Anna who has succeeded at her dream of becoming a ballerina but it doesn’t come without costs. As she doesn’t have the perfect ballerina physique and body type and with her married lover Philippe scrutinizing everything she puts into her mouth, Anna finds herself eating less and dancing more. After Anna collapses during rehearsal and suffers a knee injury, she figures that her husband Matthias’ new job opportunity in middle America is just what she needs. With her knee completely healed and able to dance again, Anna begins applying to dance companies but unfortunately can’t find a job. With her husband at work all the time Anna begins to lose interest in everything, including the desire to eat. Eventually Anna ends up weighing 88 pounds and she realizes she needs help so she checks into 17 Swann Street, a rehab and treatment center. There she meets six other women being treated and must decide if she wants to get better and how to fix herself.

The main reason I gave this book 3 stars is because of the lack of direction in this book. I was constantly confused with the dialogue and who was actually speaking. Another thing is there are italicized passages thrown in throughout the story that talk about Anna and Matthias’ relationship in the past but I had no clue it was past tense for awhile. It could be because I have an uncorrected edition of the book but I was so dang confused. I wish that the dialogue had been more clear and that somehow the author gave a heads up that there is past tense thrown in with the present tense.

Wow! Prepare yourself for an emotional run with this read. Anna and her husband Matthias have moved from Paris to America. Once in America, her eating disorder forces her into treatment as an inpatient at 17 Swann Street. There we meet several other women in the same situation. This story is filled with many layers and complexities as we are taken through Anna's life from France to America, from the backstory through to the mental health intake. It is heart breaking to watch how Anna has Matthias to support her when so many others have no one. This story does not sugar coat anything and is very intense so beware if you are not up to it.

While this is not my usual type of read, I am really glad I jumped in with both feet because once I started reading this one I could not put it down.

**Received this ARC for review from the publisher via NetGalley**

I liked the overall flow of the story. It was engaging, insightful and well put together. My issues fell mostly with the protagonist Anna.

Our main character Anna struggles with Anorexia above the several other issues you could observe through the process of reading her story.

The handling of how Anna experienced her affliction and how it affected those around her personally was handled beautifully. It was an excellent view into how the psyche of those suffering can act, react and deal with such experiences.

When it came to her actual treatment and recovery it felt very unbelievable. The center she attends as well did not seem realistic. If the medical system worked that way and every patient had committed treatment the way its implied in this book there would be a lot less addicts and people suffering from debilitating disorders.

What bothered me the most was that she doesn’t seem to want to get better for herself. Most of her desire seems to stem from her desire to do it for her husband. As we delve into her backstory she’s always out to please those in her life as opposed to acknowledging doing something good for herself because she wants it.

Anna does have a decent support system with the other girls at the center. Truthfully, I think she gained more insight and help for her issues from them than the actual staff at the center. It’s a shame they weren't developed a little more.

While I can’t give The Girls at 17 Swann Street a glowing recommendation it was a good book over all.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street by debut author Yara Zgheib touched me personally in so many ways. As a mother of a daughter who suffers with not only other mental disorders, but also an eating disorder, I have to say this author did an amazing job depicting the anxiety and agony of living with this disorder day in and day out. How it touches and changes not only the life of the one who suffers with the disorder, but of those who love them.

This story focuses primarily on Anna Roux. A woman who followed her husband from Paris to Missouri for a work opportunity, but who somehow lost herself along the way. She did not believe she had a problem, even as she weighed only around ninety pounds. So begins her journey at 17 Swann Street.

The author, Yara Zgheib, did a remarkable job brining Anna’s journey to the readers. Through every process, decision, anxiety of this disorder. It brought me to tears many times. The story was emotional and captivating. Not only Anna, but all the girls at 17 Swann Street.

Wow what a book. This book takes you on a journey with Anna, a former ballet dancer, from Paris, to America. Once in America she slowly descends into a life of Anorexia. Her love of dancing unfulfilled in this new country. Her loneliness, and struggle with self image leads her to
17 Swann Street. This address is a treatment center for girls with anorexia and bulimia. The reader sees first hand how hard the struggle is, how some make it and some don't. You will see the pain and struggle of wanting to get better. If not for herself then for her loving husband. The demon in her head fights her every bite of food. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion. Excellent book! A truly talented author.

I received a free copy of this book from the author. I had the opportunity to review or not.

Anna can’t eat any longer. She weighs 88 pounds and keeps trying to improve her dancing skills. If she tries harder, she can become better and will be good enough. If she doesn’t eat, she won’t gain weight and it will all work out for her.

But it doesn’t and Anna is forced to accept that she needs help. She finds that help at 17 Swann Street where she meets people like herself. She just doesn’t want to be there and fights against the rules. They want her to eat, not just food, but food she has stopped eating and six times a day. She can’t eat it. She won’t eat it. Anna rebels.

Anna’s struggle to overcome her disease is poignant, intimate and much harder than she could have imagined. She is not alone in her struggles. The girls at 17 Swann Street all have reasons of their own. They are willing to help each other even when others have given up. Some have families, some are determined to overcome and some are willing to accept the disease and just live with it. But all are in it together.

I found this book to be an eye opener. I never gave much thought to the difficulties involved with overcoming such an insidious disease. Yara Zgheib’s portrait of the damage caused by eating disorders, the intense struggles the patients endure and the frightening consequences of their disorder are presented with sympathy and empathy, while at the same time she shows the toughness of the patients themselves, and the medical personnel involved in the process. I would recommend this book to anyone.

This is a gripping story about Anna, 26, and her journey in an eating disorders treatment center.
Yara Zgheib debut novel gives us a deep, emotional insight on how and why one would become anorexic and the impact of the mental disease on both the person and her family.
How does one go from skipping a meal to fighting for her life ? Most women suffer some kind of body dysmorphia, most suffer sporadic emotional distress but only few fall into the anorexie trap. Everyone will relate to a certain degree to the characters of this book.

Ultimately, like every other book on addiction and psychology, this one falls short to truly determine a solutions and a course of action. Every patient has his/her own reasons it is almost impossible to go deep enough into the ‘why’ one does what one does.
The reading is easy and the book will stay in your heart way beyond its reading. I thought this was a good effort.

My thanks to Yara Zgheib and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.
Publication date: 2/5/19

Anorexia is not Just for Teenagers

Anna is a ballerina, but she hasn’t danced since she injured her knee. She’s married to Matthias, a caring man who loves her. Anna is also anorexic. She’s twenty-six, not a teenager, but anorexia doesn’t respect age.

Anna is in a treatment center, 17 Swann Street, for women with anorexia and other eating disorders. Anna knows that she must conquer her problem, and she has Matthias’ love to sustain her, but getting beyond anorexia, like any other mental illness, is not easy. Besides her husband, Anna has the friends she makes in the treatment center. All the women are struggling with eating disorders, but they are supportive of each other. It’s what helps bring them through.

This is not an easy novel to read. The author has done a good job getting into Anna’s mind showing how difficult it is to eat once you have built up a wall against food. The description of the treatment facility and the diets were realistic.

The other important part of the story is the role the men in her life, lover, father, husband, played in Anna’s disease and recovery. Anna was lucky. Although her lover was a man who made her ashamed of her body, she has a loving husband and father who support her and help her recover. I finished the book hoping her recovery lasts.

I received this book from St. Martin’s Press for this review.

Librarian: I feel that this is a book that librarians should keep on their shelves. It feels important, and I can't help but feel that it will be exactly the right book for someone, somewhere. I just don't know who that person will be.
I also think that this might be a good book for book clubs. There's a lot to unpack here, and I think that there's probably a good amount of discussion that can come from the story.
Reader: This is an odd book for me to read. I spent most of it not sure what I thought of it. Honestly, I still don't know for sure. It's strange and melancholy, and occasionally a little didactic. It explores a world that I knew nothing about, and am honestly not sure I want to know anything more about. It was interesting, yet also disturbing, and at times I felt like I was watching some kind of disaster that I just couldn't look away from. I didn't end with that feeling, but I definitely felt it throughout the book.
One thing that struck me was just dehumanizing the treatment that these woman go through is. Everything they are is forcibly stripped away and they're reshaped into something new. And I understand that that's because the person they was before was someone that was unhealthy. Yet it feels almost cruel to completely destroy a person in order to attempt to save them. You understand why they do it, and yet you understand why they patients resist too. It's not that they don't want to get better, it's that getting better forces them to become someone not themselves, and they aren't sure they want that. It's wonderfully, understandably human. You can feel the pain on both sides of the equation, and it's horrible and it's beautiful.
I'm glad I read this book, but I don't think that I'll ever have any desire to do so again.

This was a heartbreakingly graphic, honest and emotional story of anorexia and other eating disorders. The Girls at 17 Swann Street are at an inpatient treatment facility for this troubling affliction. The story centers on Anna and her struggles to overcome the need to fanatically control her eating. She has a loving, caring husband and Papa, but they feel helpless and hopeless...she has to overcome this on her own. The one thing I found missing from this book was a definitive understanding of why she felt she needed to do this. But, perhaps that is the ultimate tragedy of eating disorders...not knowing why. “There is no tragedy to suffering. It is, just as happiness is. To be present for both, that is life, I think.” Thanks to #NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book.

A mesmerizing gem of a story that will tug at your heart strings and have you sympathizing with the characters that capture your heart. Definitely pick up this winner of a book and prepare to be enthralled. Happy reading!

Anna Roux’s life changed drastically when her husband moved them from Paris to the American Midwest. Her profession as a dancer fades to history, and she disappears inside herself, despair manifesting as anorexia. In a holiday visit home, her family’s shocked reaction to her appearance prompts her husband to commit her to a strict program at 17 Swann Street, where Anna learns the hard way to eat again. There’s so much more going on than Anna feeling fat, so much involved in succumbing to an insidious disease. Zgheib carefully maneuvers through the complexity of her character’s inner turmoil. As a contributing factor as well as an integral part of Anna’s support system, her husband is explored through his emotional roller coaster, denial, and finally, tough love response to her illness.

This story paints a detailed description of a unique life with an unfortunately common disease, where one cannot point to any one action as a causation. Readers with no connection to this illness still will reel from the pain of a young woman who feels out of control of her own life, who cannot reconcile her less than desirable circumstances with the love she feels for her husband, sympathizing with her as she is forced to confront the voice of anorexia telling her that she is not enough. The slow, challenging journey is well told by a talented writer. This is a must-read for the awareness and understanding it brings. If anorexia has touched your life in any way, offer this story to friends and family. Even if it hasn’t, read and share for the compassion invoked.

This book hit close to my heart. I struggled with anorexia while in high school. I admit it was hard to read this book. My mind kept going back to that mindset. I had to put the book down a few times. I highly recommend reading this.

In her debut novel, Yara Zgheib paints a realistic picture of a young woman struggling with the devastating disease of anorexia nervosa. I just happened to watch a documentary about Karen Carpenter at the same time. The famous singer suffered from the same condition and passed away far too young. It was scary to read the statistics on the risk of relapse. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this eye-opening novel.