Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's press for an advanced read in exchange for this review. I really liked this book!

Anna follows the love of her life from Paris to the US. As she struggles to figure herself out after a ballet career, she loses herself in anorexia. She is sent to a residential treatment facility and this is her story.

I thought this book did a good job of chronicling the struggles that people face with eating disorders. The author describes Anna's treatment plans, including letting you in on her therapy sessions where you get to hear her inner thoughts. I appreciated that this is told from Anna's POV but also let's you into the struggles of the other people in treatment too. It's sad and heartbreaking, but powerful.I imagine that this book could be triggering for those with their own eating disorder struggles, so please consider that before starting.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET by Yara Zgheib in exchange for my honest review.***

Anna begins residential treatment for anorexia in a setting with six other women. One will die. One will be kicked out. One will be taken away in an ambulance never to return. One may remain forever. Anna must decide whether to engage in treatment and which she wants to be.

I’ve read plenty of YA books with characters who have eating disorders. THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET is the first literary fiction for me. The format of the book confused me, which may in part be due to the egalley not yet finished editing. Both past interactions and dialogue was set in italics and the dialogue didn’t have quotation marks, so that confused me. Yara Zgheib (or editing) switched from present to past to dialogue within the same chapter, necessitating pausing to figure out where the story was. Zgheib’s writing engaged me, at times almost poetic in its beauty.

While Anna has an interesting backstory, I didn’t find her character interesting. Her kindness toward the other residents endeared her to me. I would have liked to know more about the other residents and their points of view.

The biggest drawback to THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET was that the treatment center, set in in St. Louis, bears no resemblance to eating disorder treatment in the United States. Nurses performed surgery at their station. Ambulances frequently carted off residents. The treatment was said to be covered by insurance, including that of a resident who had been in and out of the same facility for 4 years, residents were allowed to stay as long as they needed treatment, insurance just wanted to make sure the patients were taken care of (insert rolling eyes emoticon.) After residential treatment, they could count on 4-9 months of day treatment. If mental illness had that level of treatment, people would be a lot better off. But I digress. Zgheib could have done some research and shown a more realistic setting. The therapeutic activities and case notes were well done and my favorite parts of the story. Most readers probably won’t be as picky as details as I am.

THE GIRLS AT 17 SWANN STREET is a unique look at eating disorder treatment and recovery that will interest YA and adult readers.

I was unfamiliar with Yara Zgheib before reading this book, but as I read The Girls at 17 Swann Street, I caught myself thinking several times that the writer knows of what she writes. This is an absolutely believable book filled with characters you find yourself pulling for as they each struggle in their own way. I enjoyed the style of the book, with time jumps from present day to years to months to weeks back because this is how our brains tend to work: we are triggered by a current situation into a memory or repetition of an earlier response to a similar situation.

While I would certainly recommend the book for anyone who has loved a person struggling with disordered eating, the book doesn't limit itself only to that. There are so many thought-provoking moments in the book that bring to the forefront the struggles that so many women have with body image, perfectionism, insecurity. Very few women I know (in fact, I can' think of a single one at the moment) escape being told we're "too" something (loud, fat, tall, short, thin, shy, bold...you get the idea) by people who are well-meaning or pretend to be. Although most of the characters in the book were young enough to be my daughters, as I read the book I very much identified with what they were facing, so this isn't a book that will be of interest to only a certain age group.

I hope Ms. Zgheib will write more novels as, based upon my reading of this book, I believe she has a great deal to say that we need to hear.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I requested this eARC. The premise sounded interesting and the topic- eating disorders - caught my eye. This is not the typical genre of book that I read. If possible, I would rate this 3.5 stars.

I have mixed feelings about the book. While the topic is important and the author did a good job of explainng anorexia and the side effects - from the individual to the family - I wasn't that crazy about the writing style. Several times, I found the transitions between past and present, muddy and unlcear. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had been written in a diary format. With that said, the overall story was interesting and the trials faced by the main character trying to overcome and get a grip on her disease, felt very real and believable.

I think because of the subject matter, this would make a great book club book that would inspire a heartfelt discussion about eating disorders.

Thank you #netgalley and #stmartinspress for the eARC. This is my honest review.