I was fortunate to be asked by the book publisher to head to NETGALLEY and check out this book. I am so very glad that I did. The main plot is driven by the fact that the main character, Anna Roux, a professional French dancer, married for three years, is battling anorexia nervosa. Now, I have read a few books and watched a lot of movies about anorexia and bulimia and they are mostly portrayed by teenage girls. So it was very refreshing to see how this disease gradually takes over an adult woman's life.

Like Anna, The Girls at 17 Swann Street are battling eating disorders and this book doesn't sugarcoat the treatments and offers a realistic portrayal of how people think and feel. Yara Zghieb invokes plenty of emotion in the writing of this novel and her various characters show us the many layers and complexities of living with an eating disorder. We see women who lose the battle and those who have struggled with it for many years. What I thought was so realistic is that although we see Anna supported by her beautiful husband, Matthias, this is contrasted by others who have no one. This just makes the book all more realistic and genuine in tackling such a subject that is rarely touched upon in women's fiction.

Trigger warning: I do not recommend this for people who are currently suffering from an eating disorder or are just starting recovery simply because it feels so realistic and relapsing is a thing.

Wow. I’m not sure where to start with this book. It hit me really hard.

As the trigger warning indicates, this is a book about eating disorders. The girls at 17 Swann Street all suffer from a toxic relationship with food. Most of the 7 girls (or women, really) are anorexics but there’s also a couple of bulimics.

We follow Anna, a young French woman who has followed her husband Matthias to the States, where had to move for work. Matthias spends a lot of time at work and Anna is stuck at home in their apartment in a foreign country with little else in her life than waiting for her husband to get home.

Anna used to be a ballet dancer until she had an injury. And of course as a dancer the environment was already extremely competitive and there was a lot of focus on weight. So she started even then to shrink from being a real person with a full life to being someone who obsesses about food and cutting out more and more from her diet, losing more weight, training harder, and she’s still not good enough. She pushes herself too hard and gets injured.

With the injury and the ensuing move to the US, Anna loses the last bit of herself that was not a food obsession: the joy of dancing and the relationships with her family (to a large extent her husband as well as he’s working a lot). Things start to completely unravel. And at the point where she is admitted to Swann Street she is barely alive, surviving on apples and popcorn, doing extreme workouts and with a BMI of – I think – 15. Severely underweight.

The book switches back and forth between Anna’s past both in France and after the move to the US, and present time in the treatment facility. This switching back and forth and the use of italics gets confusing, as it’s often not clear what time we’re currently in or if someone is speaking. Though it’s possible this is only a problem with the digital ARC that I have received. And once you sort of learn to go with it, it doesn’t put a dent in the power of the story.

And that power lies partly in how real it feels. Compared to Anna I have only “dabbled in” eating disorders, and was never institutionalised for it, but I remember so well the exhaustion, the obsession and compulsive behaviour, how your world shrinks to just thinking about what to eat (or mostly what not to eat). I believe the author must either have personal experience with eating disorders, or that someone very close to her went through something like this, to get it to ring so true.

This book was not only believable, but also incredibly beautiful and touching. Not just in the language but in the sweet moments of fractured hope, and in the strong love between Anna and her family, and the bonds between the women at 17 Swann Street. I found it heartbreaking that these women who are so cruel to themselves and their own bodies are so kind, understanding and fiercely loyal to each other.

There is a lot of sadness and despair in this novel, but there is hope and beauty too – and that for me is what elevates it. It made me cry from both sorrow and joy (even when retelling parts of it to J in a café..), it made me reflect on life and be grateful. It has been a long time since I struggled with anorexia now, but I still remember it vividly. And my relationship with food is still fraught. But I am grateful that I have come this far. That I can genuinely enjoy food (a bit too much at times..) and feel that it nourishes me. I can appreciate the miracle that is my body, appreciate my strength, my health and my mind.

And I am grateful for this beautiful book, for reminding me of the struggle and that despite it there is always hope, love and kindness.

An incredible read following the life of a dancer from Paris that has anorexia. It starts with day one of her treatment at 17 Swann Street. The book is well written with flashbacks to her history. Amazing details of what life is like with anorexia - the thought processes and the feelings. Well done!

Yara Zgheib's heartbreaking and lyrical debut takes us into the world of eating disorders, how they can arise and the devastating impact on both sufferers and their circles of friends and family. It begins with the 26 year old Anna Roux entering 17 Swann Street, a residential medical treatment house inhabited by vulnerable and fragile women. As the narrative goes back and forth in time, we learn of Anna's dedication to her career as a professional ballet dancer in Paris, an ex-boyfriend who damaged Anna's self esteem, her wonderfully loving husband, Matthias and her injured leg. Matthias is offered a opportunity to work in Missouri in the United States which Anna is happy to support. However, an isolated and lonely Anna is plagued by her insecurities and fears as her life spirals out of control with depression and anorexia, and she weighs a mere 88lbs.

A young Anna feels more like an old woman as Zgeib outlines the struggles of the women, their stories, their setbacks, and their support of each other. We get insights into their complicated and distorted relationship with food, their inner world of anxieties, self destructive impulses, esteem issues and more. Matthias finds himself out of his depth and feeling helpless but he loves Anna, and it is this love that drives Anna's desire to get better. Zgeib writes with humanity, compassion, knowledge and authenticity in her character driven portrayal of the mental health issues surrounding eating disorders. I found this a raw, intense and emotional read which is brilliant in its characterisation and the medical issues it examines. An excellent book which I recommend highly. Many thanks to Beatrice and St Martin's Press for an ARC.

" I am a child in a body that grew up too soon, found adulthood and real life a scam, and now is trying to lose enough weight to lift off the ground, fly away."
It is a wonderfully written novel of a young woman who finds herself in a self-destructive situation that becomes a matter of life or death and how she fought to regain her life, her marriage and her family, one minute at a time.
Heartbreaking at times, yet friendship and love definitely prevail for Anna.
This is definitely not an easy read, but could be any woman with the pressures in today's world.
It is an excellent book and well worth the time!

Yara Zgheib has painted such a detailed, realistic picture of life with an eating disorder. The story is of Anna, an injured dancer trying to find her place. Anna doesn’t think she has a problem but her illness has caused significant pain for her family.

Zgheib showed me that there’s a fine line between what I thought anorexia was and what it truly is. It’s more than being obsessed with caloric intake and finding the right balance of nutrition and exercise. It’s so much more than simply starving yourself because you think you look fat. She tells of how
women with life-threatening eating disorders live.... how they work together to fight their diseases and face six meals a day. How each bite causes anxiety and guilt. It shows the bigger picture of how it impacts friends and family as well.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street is well-written and realistic. The novel was emotional and enlightening, and the story brought me to tears more than once. I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading more from Yara Zgheib.

This one was not for me. The topic was interesting but the book didn’t do it justice. I wasn’t engaged at all with the characters. I really wanted to like this one.

This book was well written and interesting enough in content, however, I just was not able to connect with any of The Girls at 17 Swann Street.

Many thanks to Netgalley and St Martin's Press for this advanced readers copy.

Beautifully written. Hauntingly sad book about the effects of anorexia on a young woman and the people she loves. The story is set at a rehabilitation center for eating disorders and briefly touches on the lives of many of the women that stay there. Raw and hopeful, this book will stay with me for a long time.

A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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 downward into depression and anorexia until she weighs a shocking eighty-eight pounds. Forced to seek treatment, she is admitted as a patient at 17 Swann Street, a peach pink house where women with life-threatening eating disorders live. Together, the women fight their diseases through six meals a day. With every bite causing anxiety and guilt, the women struggle to gain control.

Through the support of the other girls, sheer strength, and resilience, Anna begins her long journey of recovery.

Heartbreaking, haunting, and poignant, this intimate look into eating disorders is a somewhat strong debut for Yara Zgheib. Her writing is quite good, but the characters were underdeveloped. I wanted more of Anna's and the other residents' backstories. Some of the staff are just referred to as "Direct Care" and it is never explained who they are. For these reasons, the book feels unfinished.

Zgheib juxtaposes Anna's unhealthy relationships with men against her eating disorder. She is a woman that is reliant on a man to save her when she needs to save herself—her relationships with men are unhealthy as is her relationship with food.

My main criticism is that the both the dialogue and past events are set in italics. I'm not sure why some authors choose to not use quotation marks for speech—it is confusing and hopefully this will be corrected in the final version. I also found it trite that the main character was named Anna and she has anorexia.

Only pick up this book if you are in the mood for a very heavy topic. I was intrigued by both the topic and setting. I wanted to learn more about eating disorders and the early reviews of this book were strong. Unfortunately I was disappointed. I admit I get bored easily so perhaps it was just me but I found myself wanting to skip ahead about 40% of the way through the story. I did want to know what happens to Anna, the main character, but I didn't find any of the other characters well enough developed to care as much about them and I wasn't engrossed in the day to day of any of their lives. At first I felt like the language matched the intensity and stress of the topic but after a while it just became a bit of a drag to read.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an early release of this book in exchange for an honest review.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review*
Wow.
This really packed a punch! The topic of eating disorders is one that isn’t often touched on in books, but is very prevalent in real life. Anna’s relationship with food is not a healthy one, and as such she is sent to 17 Swann Street to learn better to use food to fuel her body, and not see it as an enemy.
The cast of characters are colorful and show just how differently the same illness can manifest across different people.
This was an amazing work. Truly eye-opening.

What a heartfelt story! I usually do not read these types of novels, but this one caught my eye. I am so glad I was able to read the story of Anna, who goes through the cycle of anorexia to a healing stage. Even though, healing is something that will continue for ever. The intermingling of the other girls at 17 Swann Street was heartbreaking and brought truth to the story. This is a disease that affects many people.
I want to thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read and for an honest review.

People have a wide range of relationships with food: some enjoy too much of it, others find a moderate balance, while still others find it to be challenging. In Yara Zgheib's The Girls at 17 Swann Street the goal for the girls living there is to establish a healthy relationship with between themselves and food.

Anna's life has encountered several big changes, from disruptions in her dancing career to moving to a new country with her husband, which have compounded into a more serious danger to her well-being in the form of anorexia and depression. When weighing only 88 pounds and suffering from falls she's finally forced to seek treatment, becoming a new patient at 17 Swann Street.  Anna begins the uphill battle of combating her issues surrounding eating with the tireless support of the other women in the house as they work through their own. Getting through each meal as it comes, Anna and the women find ways, big and small, to cope with the anxieties the food brings out of them. 

An honest and intimate depiction of the mental anguish and struggles associated with eating disorders, this novel demonstrates the vast reach and impact that these disorders have on the lives of those with the disorders and their loved ones. A story that develops fairly well as a whole, balancing the heavy and serious subject matter with moments of remembered or various other small joys, I was a bit surprised at the rushed nature of the ending and Anna's overall progression, as it seemed a bit less than realistic how quickly she began recovering. The writing was generally engaging and the interspersion of Anna's case notes injected a grounding reality to the narrative, though some of the choices in denoting dialogue were confusing with both spoken dialogue and thoughts, of both past and present, demarcated in the same fashion. 

Overall, I'd give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

I really like the characters in this book and the relationships they had. I would recommend this book.

This was a deeply emotional read for me. Painfully so, at times. But the author told the story beautiful and with so much care. With every page, I fell deeper into Anna's head and found myself thinking of her and her struggles even when I wasn't reading. An affecting book by a very talented author.

A haunting and hopeful look at anorexia through the eyes of Anna, who enters a treatment home on Swann Street. The story captures the pain, physical and mental, as Anna and the other residents make food choices and try to conquer their illness. Anna's husband plays a large part as the Author shows how the disease impacts loved ones.

Copy provided by the Publisher and NetGalley

In The Girls of 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib we meet Anna Roux, a former professional ballerina who seems to find her value in what others think about her and in trying to get out of the troupe and into the prima position. She exercises more and eats less until she's sick and in need of professional care at 17 Swann Street. While there, she meets a number of other women going through their own battles with eating disorders. She enters into a rigorous program and learns more about herself and what she can and can't do. This is an informative book that helps the reader understand eating disorders just a little better. In general, I usually don’t read books like The Girls at 17 Swann Street but I'm so glad that I did.

I was granted access by netgalley.com to an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book was hooked my in the first few pages, and I had a tough time putting it down! Intriguing and suspenseful, I'll recommend to all lovers of psychological thrillers!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of The Girls at Swann Street (from NetGalley). All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This one was SOOOO real. Very eye opening! I cannot imagine the self-imposed, yet tortured, lives of these girls. Their daily struggles are simply mind boggling. This was a well written sampling of the road to recovery--though not every girl's story has a happy ending. Swan Street made me want to research this condition as it exists in today's world. (I though I thought it was mostly a thing of the past, but I guess terrible body issues are always a plague on our society.). I am not sure if it ended in a realistic way or not. I think I am still on the fence about that.

Thank you to NetGalley and Yara Zgheib for the ARC.