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.

I did receive this an ARC copy of this book from NetGalley. I really enjoyed this book and I finished this book in one day. I really enjoyed how the book quickly had Anna go into a residential rehab program for anorexia. At first the book did not go into the triggers for anorexia but the reasons were built into the story about her time at 17 Swann Street. The book showed the struggle the residents went through to try to get better but it was not a pity party, it was a fight to get better. I have been around anorexia/bulimia/malnutrition and I learned some things from this book about the diseases.

I liked the quote "How little of an eating disorder the naked eye can actually see." These diseases are a mental health issue that are very difficult to cure. While not a medical book on the diseases, I think this book will help people on the periphery of the diseases to have a better understanding and compassion about the struggle with anorexia/bulimia.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC....I was apprehensive after I accepted the offer of this book. The subject of anorexia scared me a bit. I was afraid it would be too gross, too clinical, too sad. I was pleasantly surprised to find the narrative interesting, easy, and compelling. While the main focus was anorexia, I especially enjoyed Anna and Matthias' love story. I actually would have liked to have gotten a bit MORE clinical, delve a bit further into the past trauma's of Anna's life. These were merely skimmed over. Sweet, heartbreaking, funny....I'm not sure about the way it ended was it realistic or overly simplified to wrap things up? But I did enjoy Anna's story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Not only was it something fresh and new unlike anything I've read before, but it was also brutally honest and real. It read more like a memoir, and maybe it truly is, but I could definitely see the author having experienced these same traumas.

“The Girls at 17 Swann Street” is an emotionally, hauntingly gripping and eye-opening story into a disease that many do not know is a disease. Working for counselors in the past I’ve known about anorexia but “The Girls at 17 Swann Street” gave an honest and deep look at this life deteriorating disease. People always think - ‘just eat a sandwich’ and they will be fixed, but there is so much more to it than that. My heart broke and ached for Anna as she fought the battle and demons inside of her over food. This was such a unique and honest story about a difficult topic. I think this would be a great book for therapists to give to families who have someone battling anorexia. It would definitely help the family to understand what their loved one is going through and what they are fighting.

My only issue with this book was that Anna’s flashbacks were a little confusing. I still am not 100% sure who Phillippe was and what he had to do with the story. Also, be forewarned that the story is a little sad and depressing. It had me thinking and evaluating about my own eating habits. It’s a heavy read but it’s a beautiful read that I think anyone would appreciate. I received my copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

For someone like me with little understanding of the disease of anorexia, this book was a real eye-opener. My attitude had been that these were spoiled little girls who wanted attention. After reading this book, I learned that this is a disease, not a choice and that recovery is very difficult and for some, impossible.

Anna is a ballerina from Paris who has moved to St. Louis with her husband Matthias for his job. She misses dancing, Paris and her family. As her husband works long hours and she is left on her own with no friends in a strange country, her anorexia begins to manifest itself. '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.' When Anna is down to 88 pounds and her body is beginning to break down, she agrees to go to a residential center for eating disorders. This book is about the struggle to get better when she wants to cling to her anorexic life and was about not only the physical part of the disease but also the mental part. It was difficult to read at times but the story itself was told quietly and beautifully.

My main problem with the book is that they kept repeating that Anna was going to get better for her husband. In reality, the only person you can get better for is yourself and I don't think that was stressed enough in the book.

Overall this was a beautiful well written novel that taught me a lot. Thanks to Netgalley for a copy to read and review. All opinions are my own.

This was not a book I would have normally read but got it from NetGalley to rate it. I am glad I read it. I know what anorexia is but nothing about the emotional part of the disease and tremendous battle back to eating. The character development was very good and the turmoil each girl went through made me feel i was with these girls. Good book, well written.

This was a hauntingly lovely book about Anna, a 26-year-old dancer who battles depression, fear of failure, and eventually anorexia. Even though she is married to the love of her life, her illness spirals downward until her husband must commit her to 17 Swann Street for treatment. There she will meet other girls with similar issues--most with heartbreaking stories of their own. Imagine being literally disgusted and overwhelmed with having to force down half a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast! The penalty for not eating prescribed meals is a feeding tube--the ultimate humiliation. Told through sometimes clinical documents, the story unravels from present to past as we see Anna's rise to perfection through dance and then her injury and subsequent surrender to the disease that allows her to believe she is "thin enough." Told with compassion and beauty, the novel reveals her friendships with other girls, their struggles (and sometimes failures and setbacks) and shows how a loving family and community can unite to promote healing and hope.

This novel of anorexia and mental problems wasn't able to grab my attention. I could only read a few chapters.
I didn't feel any warmth or compassion toward the characters. The writing seemed flat and cold