Interesting look into a grown woman with an eating disorder vs a very young girl. Well written and emotional in a good, not maudlin way.

Anna is a former dancer who, since moving to the US from Paris, has developed anorexia. Her husband is worried about her health and they decide she needs help or she will die.

While the internal monologue is of one who suffers with the condition I didn't feel any emotional connection to her. She seemed flat and devoid of any feeling or warmth. What does take place in her head is a real struggle for her, food being the thing she controls for what is lacking in her life. It's not only a cry for help but to fill a hole that has developed in her life.

There wasn't much of a background for Anna, you did get snippets but not enough to get more of a feel for her, a stronger connection.

It was an good story but it was undone by the writing style which make it a struggle to read. The two different fonts, one for internal thought and for external verbal communication, then the one for descriptive commentary was different. It was hard to follow with the constant shifting of past and present thoughts. It would happen sometimes in every other paragraph making it difficult to figure out what was going on when. The lack of quotation marks also made for difficult reading, was someone talking or was it an internal thought or comment?

The Girls at 17 Swann Street is unlike any book I've read before. It inhabits the mind of the protagonist Anna Roux as she battles an eating disorder.

Author Yara Zgheib shows us a world within a world, the clinic where Anna battles her disorder. It's a place with its own rules and rituals, some established by the personnel running the place, and some established by the women who live there.

Through flashbacks, we learn how Anna, a dancer, came to leave her native Paris and live in Missouri with her husband, Matthias. We see the roots of her dysfunctional relationship with food grow more tangled as she winnows more and more things from her diet. We wince at the lies she and Matthias tell each other about her condition.

This is not a perfect book – the flashback structure sometimes interrupts the flow of the narrative. But it is a profoundly affecting one. It is one thing to understand, intellectually, how an eating disorder works. It's another thing to feel, viscerally, a young woman weeping because she does not want to eat yogurt.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review. This book starts out a tiny bit slow, but not for long. I'd say within 10 pages I was hooked and interested in how the journey with anorexia was going to go. It was heartbreaking in many ways, because there were struggles and setbacks and losses. The writing is beautifully done, and I really cared about these characters. I think you will too.

17 Swann Street is the address for a house. A peach and pink house. It is not, however, an ordinary house. It is the home of girls, young women who are fighting eating disorders. Bulimia, anorexia. Those insidious of all diseases. You wish to lose a few pounds and can be caught in the trap of never being skinny enough. Even when your body, bones, skin, brains are being cannibalized, just for you to get up and get started with whatever you may have planned. This a remarkable story of a group of young women fighting to conquer the eating disorders that are slowly burning surely taking over their lives.
The characters portrayed are extraordinary. The storyline phenomenal. Highly recommended!

The Girls of 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib

Anna is a dancer, married to Matthias, and together they are young and in love and happy. Until the pressure of dance, injury and the ever-constant focus on thin ness, a loss of her position in a Parisian Ballet company, and a job offer for Matthias takes them from their home in Paris to St Louis, Missouri. Her life dwindles without dance, and with Matthias working long hours. Her eating dwindles too, until she is so sick she goes to 17 Swann Street, a rehabilitation house for eating disorders. Told in first person narrative, with intermittent reposts from the recovery team, The Girls of 17 Swann Street is a heartbreaking, yet hopeful book. The girls who live in the house care for Anna, and cheer her on, even if they can’t do it for themselves.

The novel is so well written, the reader will cringe with each bite that Anna must take of the foods she’s eliminated one by one. The calorie goals seem huge, but Anna gains slowly. We learn of the terrifying effects self-starvation has on the body and the very human psychology that deludes those with eating disorders.

Yet ultimately, this is a love story. Of Anna and Matthias, of the girls for one another, but ultimately, one woman’s desire to reclaim life. A compelling read.

WOW - What a wonderful first person story about a young woman battling anorexia nervous. Yara Zgheib makes you feel like you are experiencing first hand the debilitating effects associated with this crippling eating disorder. The characters are relatable and engaging. Nice job Yara bringing this infrequently discussed topic to the forefront.

As a mother who has an anorexic daughter this book is pretty spot on in its description of a restrictive anorexic. It's heartbreaking, but amazingly accurate.
Readers will draw some inspiration while seeing into the life and mind of someone with this disease.

THE GIRLS OF 17 SWANN STREET is a poignant and haunting story of a girl who is battling anorexia only because those around her want her to “get better”. Her demons and self-loathing have caused her to deny herself foods that she used to love. Her marriage is slipping away, full of unspoken words as Anna becomes thinner and thinner. Finally, her husband brings her to 17 Swann Street, where she will undergo treatment.
The author’s way of demonstrating the character’s struggle is intense – the reader is thrown into Anna’s mind through internal rumination and flashbacks, which serve to illuminate the deepest thoughts of an anorexic. Anna is not sure if she wants to live or die, even as those around her suffer with the same affliction and vanish. Throughout the course of the story Anna’s fate remains uncertain, as she takes one step forward and two steps back. Her struggle to consume enough calories under the watchful eyes of the clinic staff (who go un-named in an effort to dehumanize them, an excellent tactic by the author) is laid bare as she is shamed publicly for hiding a small bit of cream cheese in her napkin and then throwing it out.
As I read I wondered when Anna was just going to give up – her character is severely depressed and tragic. She does everything in her power to drive her husband away, despite his constant visits. She battles the staff over each mouthful of food she is forced to eat. In fact, she is such a morose person that at times I wished she would make a choice, rather than simply give up. However, it sounds like the author either did excellent research or she has personal experience with the disorder, because Anna’s behavior is exactly what you would expect from someone with depression and concurrent anorexia.
The book is an easy read – I got through it in one day because I was driven to know what would happen to Anna. As I mentioned before, at times I wasn’t sure if I was on her side or not. It was heartbreaking to see her shunning her husband, who clearly adored her. It was frustrating to see her work really hard, then seemingly change her mind and give in to her old habits. Self-care is not easy when you hate yourself, and Anna’s character is proof that the mind can be an evil, overpowering entity that robs one of the ability to control their life. I felt the cold fingers of depression reaching for me once I finished the book – it’s so real that it gets into your own head and makes you wonder if you are ok, if you will be ok.

This story is an emotional journey through the world of eating disorders: both through the eyes of patients and their loved ones. The reader finds out that there is a pattern of triggers and self image crises (and people) that are portrayed uniquely. However, many times, there is an underlying connection among the girls that are under care at the Swann Street House.

Anna and Matthias are married and had lived in Paris. He takes a job in St. Louis, MO. and Anna is placed in care at 17 Swann Street. She is sadly underweight and the physical stresses, aside from appearances, are perhaps alarming to some. Yara Zgheib does a brilliant job of intertwining possible effects of starvation in both the physical and mental realms. Matthias, Anna's husband, is heartbreakingly wonderful as is his constant love for Anna. Support - whether from the other girls in the program or her husband - is demonstrated as paramount to recovery. A sweet, yet compelling read...

I read this within a day.!


A MUST read - to think that I (Anna's height) once weighed 89 pounds, is enough to have me glad that I am healthy and now 20 pounds more - at 67 years old.

It is a fight and a daily struggle.

Many thanks to both St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a pointed, interesting read.

I was skeptical at whether or not I would enjoy this book. It seemed like it would be depressing. It was beautifully written and touching. You can easily identify with the main character even if you don't have an eating disorder.

This is an extremely powerful depiction of anorexia and its effects! Before reading this novel I had very little understanding of anorexia. This book really changed my thinking about this disease. I thought the characters were well thought out. This novel is so well written I had to remind myself several times that I was reading a novel and not a memoir. I highly recommend this book. Great read! ARC provided by publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Extremely powerful book describing Anna's struggle with anorexia. Anna was a former ballet dancer that moves to the U.S. from Paris, France because of her husbands career. I don't normally like books that go back and forth between the past and present because they can become confusing. With this book, Yara Zgheib manages to keep the time the actions transpired clear and you get a real feel for how Anna descended into her anorexia. I was struck by the descriptions of the different women and what they were going through struggling to keep themselves together because of their distorted relationships with food. I recommend for YA readers but caution anyone that there are many triggers for people fighting eating disorder demons.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book.

I really loved this book. It is important, and everyone needs to read it . It really showcased a serious illness without sugar coating it.

Once in awhile a book comes around that completely engrosses you into the lives of its characters..... this is that book.

The Girls at 17 Swan Street, is an in depth, raw look into the lives of girls living in a treatment center all who suffer from eating disorders.
I immediately connected to Anna, her story unfolded honestly & I found myself cheering for her through each step of her recovery. Anna & Mathias'a love story was innocent & pure, it tugged at my heart strings.
In fact, all the girls at 17 Swan Street had their own intriguing stories.
The only fault I found in this book was that it left me wanting to know more about them all. I still worried over each of them as I closed the last page of the book.
I highly recommend this book, especially to girls everywhere.

For many this book might be triggering, but I urge all of you to finish it because its story is painfully, beautifully real. There is no definite ending, so don’t be disappointed by that because it would not be authentic and would somehow take away from this beautiful story. I cannot lie, there were big triggers in this book, but I just kept walking, just as Anna did. My only complaint is that her name is Anna and that’s a bit obvious. The storyline is a beautiful portrait of what inpatient treatment in a women’s facility for eating disorders is like. Perhaps the lack of smoking incessantly and making cheesy friendship bracelets and playing countless card games and the constant leg shaking that ensues after mealtimes was missing, but mostly this story is very true to life. It reminds me a bit of that movie To The Bone, but with a group of older women. This is a quick read, but a very good one. I do wish it maybe dig deeper into the main characters causes of their EDs, but I think anyone who has been through what these women are going through can appreciate this book.

This is a powerful, albeit harrowing read. The pain that is displayed by the main character is, well, painful. I would have loved a little more insight into some of the supporting characters, as well as some greater depth in terms of what the main character learns about herself. That being said, I'm really glad I got to read this book and would strongly recommend it to others.

A dark, intelligent, fascinating and probing tale narrated by a young woman whose husband has just placed her in a residential treatment program for women with eating disorders. When he finally avknowledges her illness, Anna weighs 88 pounds and is in extremely poor health. Of course, Anna is in complete denial of her anorexia.
As someone who lived with a close relative who suffered from anorexia, this novel provided me with greater insight into the mental and emotional state of the anorexic. While each person is unique, the control needed to starve oneself is paramount and it requires a vast amount of energy to invent all the ways one can continually increase an aversion to eating and to food itself. I had known about some of them, but there are so many more. However, most heartbreaking are the secrecy and isolation which both cause and exponentially exacerbate an eating disorder and this is explored extremely well in this nove.
The cure rate for anorexia is quite low. The families of those who suffer from this disorder are actually powerless to actively assist the one who is ill, much like families are often helpless when faced with a family member who is an addict. For Anna, being placed in a treatment facility was the most that could be done for her. The rest - the healing - she must do herself.
A must read for family members of an anorexic. Pehaps not the best for a recovering patient with her or his own demons.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street takes an in depth look at living with anorexia, primarily focusing on life during treatment. The main character, Anna, is a former ballerina who uproots her life in her native France to follow her husband, Matthias, to America. Once they have relocated, her own personal life and career are in shambles. Now unemployed and unable to find anything suitable to her skills, she is forced to work as a grocery clerk. Although it not explicitly mentioned, she also appears to be fairly socially isolated with no close peer group in their new home. Anna slowly begins to restrict what she will and will not eat while also developing an excessive exercise regime. It is not until a visit to her family that Matthias admits her health has declined to the point of needing professional help.
I found the writing almost dream like and some of the characters vague. Many girls in the care setting are introduced to us once and then never heard from again with zero explanation as to what happened to them. The descriptions became repetitive, but this repetition shows how well the author understands life with an eating disorder that is characterized by extreme anxiety related to food. Anna's thinking patterns and anxieties feel real, like reading a personal diary instead of a work of fiction. The subject matter is handled as beautifully as possible while not shying away from the harsher details. Overall, I would have liked to see more character development, or chapters told from an alternative POV so that we saw more than only Anna's reactions. However, this is a well done novel concerning a subject that is still glossed over with or treated with kid gloves.

This book wasn't my favorite. Not because of the subject matter, but moreso because I struggled even forming a connection to the characters. The writing, in my opinion, was rather cold. As a result, I had a very hard time getting into the book. I finished it, but would not likely recommend it.