Anna is a professional dancer from Paris who finds herself in the middle of Missouri after she follows the love of her life. Feeling out of control, alone, and depressed, Anna begins to spiral downward into the beast known as anorexia. In a state of desperation, she is admitted to 17 Swann St, a facility to help her find a path of self discovery and recovery. Anna and her fellow patients form a unique bond that can only be brought together by a fear of eating. With six other women, they battle the anxiety of eating six meals a day in order to reclaim their lives. Traveling on her journey to recovery, Anna learns about herself and the strength she can possess.

This book is heartbreaking, dark, and evokes multiple emotions of pain as well as strength. Anna's anorexia and her food anxiety is developed in such a vulnerable and real way, that the reader cannot help but feel every bit of pain Anna is feeling. Zgheib does a beautiful job creating characters suffering from every type of eating disorder, demonstrating the true struggles faced by those plagued with this disease. The juxtaposition between the beauty of their friendships and the pain of taking a bite of food is truly heart-wrenching. I highly recommend this book as an important read.

"Everyone around me thinks I have a problem. Everyone around me is scared. I do not have a problem. I just have to lose a little bit of weight. I am scared too, but not of gaining weight. I am terrified of life. Of a sad and unfair world. I do not suffer from a sick brain. I suffer from a sick heart."

After leaving Paris and moving to the US with her husband, 26 years old ex-ballerina Anna struggles to adjust to the new life. 17 Swann Street is a clinic treating girls with anorexia and bulimia. It is a place where Anna ends up when her weight drops to 88 pounds.

"I once had lips and breasts, but those shrank months ago. Along with my thighs, my liver, my behind."

The Girls at 17 Swann Street was a quick read, but not an easy one. Yara Zgheib portrays a very realistic picture of an eating disorder.

Following Anna on her difficult journey to recovery was very emotional for me. Unfortunately I have witnessed very closely what an eating disorder does to a person. My sister has always had a model like figure, very tall and slim. It only took one idiotic comment from her ex who said she was starting to look fat after she put on 3 kilos during summer holiday. She was 65kg at 182cm! After that, she stopped eating and rapidly turned into a skeleton. At 52kg she still believed she needed to lose more weight. My parents pleaded, begged, threatened, but nothing worked. When she ended up in the hospital, she finally promised to start eating. My mum was happy but that didn't last long. The eating disorder my sister was suffering from just changed its name. Anorexia turned into bulimia. It's been years now since this first started and my sister has never been completely cured of bulimia and she might never be, but at least she is not underweight anymore.

Books like The Girls at 17 Swann Street are important to raise awareness and understanding. I strongly recommend this book.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book. Thank you, NetGalley.

I didn't finish reading this book. I'm sorry I just couldn't get into it. I didn't care for the characters. Others seem to love this book. Maybe you will, too.

This is the first book I’ve read by this author and it won’t be my last. I was drawn right into the story and didn’t want to put the book down to even go to bed at night. The character development was amazing and I felt like I knew each of them personally. The topic is one that I’ve never experienced nor know anyone with anoxia. The way the author explains how one suffers from an eating disorder was very realistic. I highly recommended this book.

Disclaimer: I did receive this copy free from the publisher through netgalley.com. I was under no obligation to give a review and the thoughts I express are my own.

Wow! Yara Zgheib's debut novel The Girls at 17 Swann Street merely is heart-wrenching. I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy via the publisher and NetGalley & I'm honored to have been selected to review this book. This book dives into the world of Ana and her eating disorder, the storyline, and characters are strong and effective in hitting you in the right in your feels. The Girls at 17 Swann Street is one of the books that grabs you, and you will want to finish it once you start. Zgheib's does a fantastic job of going through the motions and emotions of someone suffering from an eating disorder as well as how it affects those around them (family/friends).
I look forward to future writings by Ms. Zgheib, The Girls at 17 Swann Street sheds light on a topic most try to hide. A must read with tissues

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I was not able to connect with the characters and I felt no connection with Anna at all. The writing seemed very flat and while I understand that might be due to the heaviness of the story, it just didn't work for me.

I thought this book was going to be more about the dancer aspect of anorexia. However I did enjoy it. I think it did a good job of diving into a very difficult topic and explaining it in a way where the reader can truly feel the characters anxiety surrounding food.

I struggle to find the words to describe this book: heartbreaking could be one of them.

Such a powerful read! As a Mom with a pre-teen, this subject is something that I am thinking about already. The author did a wonderful job, and I loved all the explanations for the medical terms used throughout the book.

Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and author for providing a fre copy of this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
Release Date: February 5, 2019
Publisher: @stmartinspress #netgalley #TheGirlsAt17SwannStreet

The Girls of 17 Swann Street takes a closer look and follows 26 year old Anna as she gets checked into an in-patient treatment center to battle her anorexia. Throughout the story, we learn more about Anna as well the other women in the treatment center. I have a really close friend who struggles with anorexia to be point of having to be checked into an outpatient treatment center. Everything she told me about the center lined up with what was told in the book. It really helped me understand and better empathize with her struggles.

Eating disorders and mental health are two things that aren’t often talked about in the media. As a society, it’s often easier to turn a blind eye than try to understand what someone is going though. This book did the opposite and that’s what I loved about it. This book didn’t try to make an eating disorder look glamorous. It also did not portray an eating disorder as something that can be treated and never thought of again. Eating disorders are an ongoing struggle and the author respected that.

I received a review copy of this ebook from St. Martin's Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

Thank you to netgalley.com for the ARC.

This book started out very slow for me and I felt that the plot moved along very slowly. As the book progressed, I definitely became more interested in the story line and invested in the characters.

The story is about one woman's struggle and recovery from anorexia. The book was clearly well researched and descriptive as to how horrible a disease it is and the realities of it. It was heartbreaking and poignant at times.

I'm glad I stayed with this story because in the end it was worth it.

The Girls of 17 Swann Street is a heartbreaking trip down the rabbit hole and into the life of anorexia. Anna Roux had been a ballerina with enough talent to dance professionally in Paris but not enough to be a solo dancer or prima ballerina. She falls for a male dancer who's continuous jabs about food, size and exercise start her down a slippery slope of calorie counting, banned foods and over exercising. When she injures her knee and can't dance for a while her place in the company is filled and the man she thinks she loves marries someone else. As she moves on with life the damage has already been done and she is living the nightmare of being an anorexic without realizing it.

After healing from the knee injury Anna meets Matthias and falls head over heals in love. They move in together, marry and when Matthias recieves a job offer in the U.S. Anna follows him on the journey. Lost in a strange country with no friends or purpose Anna is soon battling depression and a full blown case of anorexia that is threatening her life.

After recognizing just how sick she is Matthias convinces Anna to get treatment and her stay at 17 Swann Street begins. There the reader is introduced to the other residents and the battle required to overcome the debilitating disease of anorexia.

The storyline of the book is incredible. The reader is slowly pulled into the mind and thinking of someone who deals with this illness on a daily basis. It becomes clear it is a psychological disease rooted in feelings of inadequacy, depression and past tramas. Every girl at 17 Swann Street has her own story which you slowly become privy to. I never fully understood how deeply embedded the rituals and fears of eating are to an anorexic until I read this book.

The character development is very well done. You first get to know Anna and Matthias as a perfect happy couple. Eventually the reader realizes everything is not what it seems and never has been. The girls at 17 Swann Street are added into the mix and as the reader I got to know each and feel the pain of their disease as well as the pain that triggered it.

I really recommend reading this book. It's beautifully written and even while describing this devastating illness shows there is hope to overcome it. If you are a parent it will open your eyes so you can watch for signs of the onset of the disease. If you are a friend or spouse it will help you recognize behaviors that are abnormal and may require professional help. If you are just reading for pleasure it's an eye opening look at a very real disease that is little understood by the general public. The characters are all people you will care about, root for and hope to see overcome the huge struggle that is anorexia.

This is a very interesting book about an 88 pound anorexic adult, Anne Roux, and how she tries to overcome her disease . I learned a lot about eating disorders and residential treatments to help the victims. Anne is a very unhappy young woman who was a professional French ballet dancer and had to leave her beloved France to follow her husband to America.. Anne is haunted by her loneliness, sadness, insecurities and depression. She is admitted into the residential treatment facility at 17 Swann Street and we are introduced to the other girls at the center. I didn’t like the omission of quotation marks and the jumping back and forth of events in Anne’s life . It was a little confusing to follow when recaps of events were interjected in the narration. Anne tells this story in the first person narrative and we read about her struggles through her eyes.

When I first started this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. I wasn't even sure I liked the main character. But the more I learned about her and the events that led up to her arrival at 17 Swann Street, the more I became a cheerleader for her.

I loved the interactions between the main character and those around her, especially the other girls. When she began to run a parallel with Valerie (the notes) I was afraid she'd follow a similar path. I totally want to know more about Emm! Maybe a sequel in the future? (Fingers crossed!)

The book presents a potentially heartbreaking situation, answers the biggest questions, and leaves enough loose ends for the reader to imagine what comes next.

I really loved Anna and empathized with her deep struggle to overcome her disorder. A touching, difficult read.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

AWARENESS!.ENLIGHTENING!
So much more than I was expecting it grabs hold of you really shaking the reader up instilling the chaos and crippling reality of anorexia and bulimia of the individual them selves and the people in their lives! You feel the hopeless and helplessness being driven into you through the incredible writing that at times is extremely hard to swallow! Eye opening, raw, emotionally charged and painful, intense, edgy, brutally callous filled twists that make it hard to put down and at times painful to read!

First, thank you to the publisher and author for giving me a digital ARC of this title via netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I am so glad I came across this novel on netgalley and that I was selected to read it. I don't know if I would have found it otherwise, and I really enjoyed reading The Girls at 17 Swann Street. The writing, while in a different style with jumps between the narration and excerpts from her medical records, was creative and powerful in telling the story. I appreciated seeing anorexia through both a medical diagnosis and through the personal eyes of someone suffering from it. The book was eye opening, tragic, touching, honest, and hopeful. I was quickly drawn in to the story of the main character and wanted to know what had led to her anorexia and cheered for her to get help. I was touched by her story and by those she met at 17 Swann Street.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an E-ARC of this book. I appreciated how this story was told in the first person which helped me stay in the main character’s head. The one thing that confused me was how the transitions between Anna’s memories and the present day. It may just be because of the formatting since this is an advance reader copy. I learned a lot from reading this book. Anna and the girls at 17 Swann Street are special characters.

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.

I really enjoyed reading about Anna and the other girls at the treatment center. This book gives you an honest look at what women with anorexia go through and how it can be a lifelong struggle to recover. This book hits the shelves on February 5th.

Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced release copy in exchange for an honest review. #netgalley #bookreview #thegirlsat17swannstreet #yarazgheib

Publishing Date: February, 2019
From the Publisher:
Yara Zgheib’s poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting portrait of a young woman’s struggle with anorexia on an intimate journey to reclaim her life.

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.
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 am one of those people who doesn't have any friends that have suffered from anorexia, and therefore had no basis for understanding what it is. In this book, Anna becomes my friend, and I learn firsthand what it is like with this terrible disease. Anna and the residents at 17 Swann Street allow me to see their pain through the eyes of a sufferer. I was there, I know what happened.

Set in Missouri, I was intrigued by the thought that perhaps there is such a home here in my state. I would love to know but I believe there are rules against things like that. When I was going through treatment for breast cancer, I was showered with all kinds of support and love. Some groups made throws, painted rocks, sent cards, and knit socks for our cold feet. Do the women in these centers have that kind of support?

This book inspired me to look beyond the body, beyond the mental issues surrounding this disease, into the hearts, souls, and minds of the women with anorexia.

As to the craft of the author, I am reminded of a dream-like, foggy background like in She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb. In this case, we see the world through the mind of Anna, who because of her disease, has a cloudy memory. We have to dig to find out what is happening that is real. I also was brought in by the author allowing the caregivers to show their pain as well. It was real and painful.

Even though this is heavy stuff, I highly recommend this book. I believe a book club could find lots of ways to discuss this book and get down to some real understanding of the life of a woman with anorexia.

This is an important book with insights into the causes treatments and recovery of anorexia and other eating disorders. I didn't think I was that interested until I started reading and then I could not put it down. The characters are still in my head. It is poignant, very sad and yet heart-warming. I had no idea about the severity of anxiety, guilt and depression in the patients and the support they receive from one another. Kudos to the author.