An achingly poignant story about the struggle to overcome eating disorders. It takes an in depth look at the emotional toll the disease takes on the individual and the people that love them. It is an eye opening tale that will break your heart, but also give you hope.

As a physician, I am aware of anorexia and its lasting effects on the human body and psyche, but Yara Zgheib’s debut novel put heart and soul into my physician’s view of the disease. Zgheib’s prose is lyric, at times stream-of-consciousness and fully captures the Anna’s struggle. Told in present time with flashbacks to the early days of her marriage, before anorexia really set in, readers can see the contrast in Anna-before and Anna-after. When her husband finally takes her for inpatient treatment, she weighs a mere 88 pounds and subsisted on apples and popcorn.

Anna meets several women in the treatment center on Swann Street and with their help and that of the staff—and of course, her beloved husband—Anna relearns to eat and appreciate the flavor of foods.


The emotion in The Girls at 17 Swann Street was taut, real. This book frequently had me in tears.

Yara Zgheib has written a heart breaking, poignant debut novel that delves into the world of eating disorders and women yearning to break free. It was difficult to read but beautifully written. It would be an excellent book club selection.

Anna and Matthias had a whirlwind romance in France, married quickly and with a wonderful job opportunity, Matthias moves them to the United States. Matthias moves up the corporate ladder while Anna’s career goes nowhere. She was an adequate ballet dancer in Paris until an accident cut her career short. She works in a grocery store. Her husband works late hours and she virtually has no friends. Anna spends a lot of time reliving her past, thinking about how awful Phillip was and the difficult competitive nature of the ballet world. She longs for children and a life much different from the one she currently has; she demonstrates her control through food.

The reader gets to see Anna and Matthias’ perspectives of their marriage and glimpses of their differing memories. Anna’s disorder is tearing this loving marriage a part and Matthias refuses to give up on the wife that he vehemently loves. At Matthias’ urging, Anna agrees to move to 17 Swann Street among other women battling eating disorders and seeking treatment.

This is a story about women bonding under the most difficult circumstances. It’s about love, acceptance and freedom.

From the start, Yara Zgheib’s debut novel, The Girls at 17 Swann Street, is a seriously compelling novel. Even though the book left me feeling melancholy, I couldn’t put it down. This is a story of women battling eating disorders that are associated with depression and anxiety. It is told primarily from the perspective of a 26-year-old former ballerina named Anna Roux.

Anna’s story is center stage, and it unfolds in the past as well as the present. Present day, Anna, is a mere 88 pounds and still in denial about having an eating disorder. It was so painful to read of Anna’s illusions and denials about her health. Her drastic weight loss has left her memory hazy, but she periodically shares snippets of the challenges she faced in childhood, as an aspiring ballerina, and then as a scorned woman. Through budding relationships with the other women at the Swann Street facility, readers get a superficial glimpse at the what and whys of their respective challenges. The issues that lead to their eating disorders are maddening. Their current physical and mental states are tragic. I felt equally fearful and hopeful for the fates of each woman.

While some of the details of the circumstances of a facility like 17 Swann Street are highly fictionalized, The Girls at 17 Swann Street is about respectfully highlighting a serious mental and physical health issue. Readers get a little insight to this devastating illness through the daily weigh-ins, the anguish about eating “so much", and the fear of giving into the pleasure of eating. Not every woman will choose to try to win the battle, and those who do face the possibility of relapse after release.

Anna’s story ends at a stated pivotal stage of the her post-release relapse period. Will she continue to choose to battle her demons or will she decide it is just too much? Eerily befitting, the first song I heard on the radio after I finished this thought-provoking book, was the Karen Carpenter hit, We’ve Only Just Begun (Ms. Carpenter died from complications related to her anorexia nervosa in 1983). That helped me decide that I was hopeful for Anna Roux and her loving, supportive family.

Received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is not my usual type of read but I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The writing is exceptional and truthful. The characters portray actual every day people. Anorexia nervosa is a tragic illness and everyone needs to be aware of the fact that it doesn't just affect the person with the illness. I would recommend this book to all. Enjoy! 📚

It was an okay story. Read kind of slow, thought it would be more exciting, would have been nice to have more detail about all the girls, background stories. Some were told, some weren't

I do not cry over books. I might tear up a bit, but seldom is there actual crying. This book made me cry, multiple times.

Anna was a ballet dancer, was living in Paris with her French husband, eating fine meals, drinking wine. Ballerinas are pressured to stay thin, get even thinner, so eating habits had to change. She also had lost some family members, tragically. Anna did not choose to become anorexic; she did not consciously decide that 88 pounds was her ideal weight, or that fruit and popcorn were her main food groups. It just happened as the disease aggressively and stubbornly took over her mind and body.

Now in Midwestern America, she goes for treatment at 17 Swann Street and so much happens in such a short time for her. I was taken in by all the young women there and their daily struggles. A very emotional journey, for me at least.

A quote from the preview copy I read: "Only 33% of women with anorexia nervosa maintain full recovery after nine months . Of those, approximately one-third will relapse after the nine-month mark."

Thank you to the publisher St. Martin's Press for offering me a copy through NetGalley. I will be recommending this one to all my reading friends.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street immediately caught my attention because of the subject matter. It's no secret that this is a book about a woman struggling with anorexia. However, the way this novel reads is unlike any other book about the subject that I've read. The book flows like a stream of consciousness coming from Anna, a 26-year-old woman with anorexia. In her words, the prose details her experience at 17 Swann Street, an in-patient facility for women with eating disorders. Anna, through her words, takes you through her story which goes backward at times to talk about her relationship with her husband, some of the factors that led to her eating disorder, and her current thoughts, fears, and dreams. Almost like a journal entry, she details how she literally had a breakdown over having to eat a bagel and cream cheese. The way she approaches food is so real to anyone suffering from the disease. The feelings and thoughts are heartwretching at times.

The book is just so real. I honestly couldn't put it down and devoured (pun intended) it in one sitting. Anna is driven by the love and dedication of her husband. Dealing with an eating disorder is hard, and this book does not shy away from that pain. However, it also provides hope. Between the interactions with the other girls at 17 Swann Street and her own life, this book grabs you and gets you invested in each of their stories.

I personally loved this book, but I think this is a book that the reader needs to know what to expect before picking it up. The expectation simply needs to be that this is a story of a woman dealing with anorexia, written in a stream-of-consciousness narration that is almost prose.

Eating disorders come in all languages and cultures. Anna Roux is a ballet dancer from Paris who now lives in the USA with her husband, Matthias. Matthias is a physicist who accepted an excellent position in St. Louis. Anna, of course, followed him to America.

The couple is devoted to each other and enjoyed a lovely life in Paris and traveling to romantic places. But now things are not good; Anna is suffering from Anorexia Nervosa. We all have read about this and seen women in films portray the life of a person with this potentially fatal disease.

Anna agrees to enter a treatment center, 17 Swann Street. Deciding to join a treatment center is the first step, a tiny one. The requirements, rules, agreements, restrictions, and lifestyle are challenging to say the least.

Anna's story comes together with stories of other women at 17 Swann Street. The novel shares the experiences of these young adult women in a gentle and caring narrative. All the tragedy presents itself, but I did not feel like a voyeur while reading their stories. The book helped me understand what it might feel like, in real life, to face a disease that you didn't expect to have and seem unable to conquer.

I received an advanced copy of this novel from the publisher through NetGalley.

This book is really well done, but super tough. Anna is a young married woman who struggles with anorexia. This is her story about in patient care at 17 Swann Street. It pulls no punches, it is brutal in its honesty and detail. I would STRONGLY caution anyone who has struggled with their weight in any way against reading this book. I am a healthy mama of 4 and even I found myself having really dark thoughts snit my own body image and eating habits while reading. And, of course, it probably goes without saying that anyone who has actually had an eating disorder should give this one a hard pass. Mamas, do not hand this to your teenage or young adult girls. It's compelling and personal (you can tell by the author acknowledgments how personal it is), and well done, but not for everyone.

I started reading this book at 4am and finished it at 8:30am! This book is impossible to put down! It touches on a very important subject, Anorexia. I've never known anyone who suffers from it, but this book really makes the reader aware of this deadly disease. Very well developed characters and the author really did her homework.
I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley.
All opinions are my own.

I’ve read quite a few books about main character’s who have eating disorders. I find them very interesting and like to see the differences in portrayals. This one was extremely raw. At points I was very disturbed, but in the most eye opening way I ever have been in reading about this topic.

I felt like Anna was my actual friend and I was with her along her journey to beat her disease. Anna’s denial and fall backs made her such a real character to me. The other girls at 17 Swann Street were portrayed so differently, which went to show how each person is unique and has their own experiences.

Overall I thought this book was written in the most poetic, beautiful way. It was so easy to get drawn into Anna and her struggles. I was so fully immersed in this one it was hard to put down.

A very absorbing and insightful story of a woman with anorexia nervosa and her admission to 17 Swann Street, a rehab facility for women with eating disorders - both anorexia and bulimia. Anna Roux weighed only 88 pounds when she came to 17 Swann Street. She was in her early 20's and had been a ballerina in Paris before she moved to St. Louis, Missouri with her husband who accepted a job offer there. The girls at the facility are very supportive of each other and Anna is one of the lucky ones whose husband loves her and wants her to get well.

I liked the character development which allowed a peek into the lives of the girls and how they were coping in various ways - and how some were not really coping. The descriptions of the routines were interesting: gradually upping calorie intake; rules for meals and what happens when they don't follow the rules and eat everything they are fed; the various counsellors seen regularly. The story was well written and flowed well. I liked the progression of the story throughout.

I have always found eating disorders fascinating, so this book for me was insightful to the mental processes that can cause them and the work the patients have to achieve to attempt to conquer them. It seems a truly difficult struggle to maintain any form of normalcy. My heart goes out to those going through these diseases.

Thanks to Yar Zgheib and St. Martin's Press through Netgalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed the book.

The chocolate went first, then the cheese, the fries, the ice cream. The bread was more difficult, but if she could just lose a little more weight, perhaps she would make the soloists’ list. Perhaps if she were lighter, danced better, tried harder, she would be good enough. Perhaps if she just ran for one more mile, lost just one more pound.

Anna Roux was a professional dancer who followed the man of her dreams from Paris to Missouri. There, alone with her biggest fears – imperfection, failure, loneliness – she spirals down anorexia and depression till she weighs a mere eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where pale, fragile women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Women like Emm, the veteran; quiet Valerie; Julia, always hungry. Together, they must fight their diseases and face six meals a day.

Yara Zgheib's poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting, intimate journey of a young woman's struggle to reclaim her life. Every bite causes anxiety. Every flavor induces guilt. And every step Anna takes toward recovery will require strength, endurance, and the support of the girls at 17 Swann Street.

I have read quite a few novels about teens with eating disorders, but The Girls at 17 Swann Street was a little different. Anna is twenty-six, and 17 Swann Street is a women’s treatment center. I felt the author did an excellent job of showing how someone could suffer from these issues for many years but in some cases, the disorders may show up later.

The story is warm, heart-wrenching, and seems like a very realistic portrayal of life in treatment for someone suffering from an eating disorder. The friendships forged in treatment and the immense impact of having the support of one's family painted such a real picture of Anna's life.

When I recieved an ARC of The Girls at 17 Swann Street from the publisher, I honestly didn't have any idea what genre this book belonged to. I would call it contemporary fiction, which is a genre I usually don't enjoy, but I really enjoyed this book. This book follows Anna, a Parisian girl in her mid-20s, a professional dancer, suffering from an eating disorder and finally is forced to seek treatment. I haven't read many books about eating disorders or mental illness as I usually avoid them, as it takes a very special author to write fiction in this area accurately. The author did a great job in this book writing about a fairly complex illness, along with the treatment center and the patients themselves. A very well written story about a very complex mental illness.

Thank you to the publisher, St. Martin's Press, for sending me an ARC of this book.

This is a dramatic yet truthful portrait of eating disorders - especially anorexia and bulimia. The girls at 17 Swann Street are actually at a group house to try to recover from their eating disorders. At times, the story becomes very dramatic - when we read about these girls struggles to eat 6 meals a day. While for anorexic girls the trouble would be eating all that, for bulimic, the drama would be eating only that. So different, yet so similar diseases. Anna, the main character, arrives at the 17 Swann Street after slowly stopping eating many types of food - to the point that she got way to thin. Even though I don't have this particular eating disorder, I could totally relate to the rest of Anna's story - a girl that moved from one country to another to follow her husband and ended up not having an opportunity to pursue further her original career. With that, she ended up getting depressed (although she didn't admit it), which eventually led her to the eating disorder. This is a very interesting book, and I highly recommend if you want to understand more about anorexia, or are just curious to know how the disease works. It's ultimately also a love story, and a story about how love can make you surpass even the worst adversities in life.

"Anorexia is the same story told every time by a different girl. Her name does not matter."
This is a poignant story about the toll eating disorders take on a person; physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, etc.

Anna Roux was a french professional dancer who due to her husband's job, moved from Paris to Missouri. There, due to loneliness and discontentment, her anorexia and depression completely take over spiraling her life out of "control" and her weight down to 88 pounds. After years of denial, her husband eventually commits her to 17 Swann Street to seek treatment and there she meets a number of other women all fighting to conquer their own demons.

This story is raw and emotional and beautifully written.

I really enjoyed this book and while it was quite depressing at many times, I felt like I was right along side these women watching their story. I cannot imagine what these women (and men) go through daily- what an awful struggle they deal with every second of the day. I was rooting for Anna from page 1, a lot of her actions were heart breaking & I wanted to reach through the book to shake her: it also gives you so much hope. Extremely powerful book and I will definitely be telling my friends about it.

An absolutely heartbreaking and accurate account of eating disorders and the toll that they take on not only the mind and body of the person suffering from the disorder, but their loved ones as well. Anna was well written, brittle, sometimes hard to love, but she flowed off the page and was relatable in a way not all fictional characters are. This was a really well written read.

17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib.

This is a heart-rending book about Anorexia. Anna, the main protagonist at twenty-six year now living in Kansas with her husband Matthias after living in Paris all her life. The story is told through the main character Anna, her dream was to be a premier ballerina .She is married to the love of her life Matthias but she battles depression, fear of failure which eventually leads to anorexia. Her husband eventually commits her to 17 Swann Street where eating disorders are treated. We live day by day, hour by hour through the rigorous program where specialists monitor the girls at 17 Swann Street. The reader is taken through the treatment and the lows and highs that the girls experience. Not everybody has a successful conclusion at 17 Swann Street but Anna was determined to try for her husband and her family.
The book gets a solid four-star rating.