I have moved into Bedroom 5, 17 Swann Street. My name is Anna, I am a dancer, a constant day-dreamer. I like sparkling wine in the later afternoon, ripe and juicy strawberries in June. Quiet mornings make me happy, dusk makes me blue. I like gray and foggy cities. I see purple in gray and foggy days. I believe in the rich taste of real vanilla ice cream, melting stickily from a cone. I believe in love. I am madly in love, I am madly loved. I have books to read, places to see, babies to make, birthday cakes to taste. I even have unused birthday wishes to spare. So what am I doing? I am twenty-six years old. My body feels like sixty-two. So does my brain. Both are tired, irritable, in pain. My hair was once wild-lion thick, morning blond. It is now a nondescript, mousy beige that falls in wisps around my face and out in my hands. My eyes, green like my mothers, are sunk so deep in their sockets that no makeup will fill the craters. I do have lovely eyelashes. I always liked those. They curl up at the edges like those of a doll I used to own. My collarbones, ribs, kneecaps, and streamer-like thin blue veins peek through paper-thin skin. My skin largest organ of my body and its first line of defense, has been more decorative than functional lately. In fact, not even that; it is cracked and taught, constantly bruised and cold. Today it smells of baby oil. For the occasion, I used lavender. I have a flat stomach. I once had lips and breasts but those shrank months ago. Along with my thighs , my liver, my behind. I lost my sense of humor too. I do not laugh very often anymore. Very little is funny. When I do, it sounds different. So does my voice on the telephone. Apparently. Not that I can tell the difference: I do not have many people to call. I realize that my phone is not with me, then remember, they took it away. I am allowed to have it until 10 a.m. and after dinner in the evenings. Once of the many house rules I will have to learn while I am living here, however long that will be. How long will that be? I turn away from the thought...and hit a tidal wave of panic. I do not recognize the girl, or the reality I just described.

Anna a dancer, a wife, a sister and daughter suffers from an eating disorder that is slowly killing her. The narration is done in her voice as she is dealing with acknowledging her disease and how she battles the voices within. She now lives at 17 Swann Street where her loving husband has brought her knowing that she will die if she is unable to conquer her demons.

The demons of loss has set her on the road to self-destruction with food and how she sees herself. Along with the other women at 17 Swann Street, each of them fight for a victory minute by minute, day by day.

The narration uses both hope and hopeless to describe this mental illness. The hope that Anna has with her husband and her father is endearing. It is a connection that keeps Anna focused on recovery. Never easy but hope never is. The hopelessness that others have when all connection is lost becomes the difference between life and death.

Anna's words will leave any reader impacted to the ills of mental illness. It is filled with reality and hope. I was completely taken.

A Special Thank you to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

Anna Roux's story broke my heart.

Years ago, a very good friend of mine went through this battle and was hospitalized. While reading this brought back some of those memories, it also made me understand what I didn't understand back then. Thirty-plus years later, we are still good friends and she's had a healthy recovery.


At times, this story was hard to read, but at the same time, I couldn't put it down. I rooted for Anna and the rest of the girls at 17 Swann Street. I wanted them to fight their inner-demons and be able to live a happy, abundant life that wasn't centered around food-compulsion.


Yara Zgheib told an important story in a beautiful way.

I have tackled this novel several times over the last months, and found it tough going. I could not find the protagonists sympathetic - simple as that. It was interesting to see what those with eating disorders have to go through to find help, and add to my knowledge of what the term entails, but finishing The Girls at 17 Swann Street was heavy weather.

I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Yara Zgheib, and St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Wow, what a sad but incitingly informal book. I didn’t know what to expect when I first started the Girls at 17 Swan Street, but I truly enjoyed it and the writing was excellent!

I don’t know anyone who has an eating disorder, thankfully, but this book made me feel like I did with Anna. I just wanted to hug her and all the girls at 17 Swan Street. So heartbreaking to read how hard it is for someone to eat or look at thmeselves in the mirror and see a completely different imagine than what stares back at them.

I believe that Anna was one of th lucky survivors. She had Mattias beside her when many others don’t have that type of support. I was happy with the ending of the book and look forward to any future books by Yara.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martins Press for gifting me an E-ARC in exchange of an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I rate this book a 4 out of 5 Stars.

This book was so raw, and emotional, I could not put it down. It was amazing insight to what it would be like to live with an eating disorder, and the thought process that one has. It was heartbreaking to read, see the trauma that even just a bagel with cream cheese could give someone. It was interesting reading how the girls behaved and how they felt regarding food, and the evilness they found in them. It was also a beautiful thing to watch them fight, and to watch them want to live, because they realized they had something worth living for.

On the flipside, this book also comes with some heart wrenching moments, they leave you with some feelings for sure. Once I had started this book, I found it near impossible to put down. I needed to see what happened with Anna. I needed to know if she fought. Overall, I found the writing beautiful, heart wrenching, and I think this book is going to make an impact on it’s readers.

Alone with her biggest fears, Anna spirals down through the deadly coils of anorexia. This is her story, a hauntingly surreal portrait of her journey to reclaim control of her life.

With rhapsodic prose flooding my psyche with the elemental boldness necessary for survival, every word captured Anna's anxiety, every lyrical phrase aroused the reality of her self-imposed guilt, and every emotion took me on her harrowing journey.

Diving head first in the difficult topic of anorexia nervosa, I could only brace myself for the transference of emotions...I met and embraced each character. While some were hiding within the shadows, others like Anna, came forth with bravery, showing me how to survive.

I LOVED THIS BOOK!

The more I read, the more I wanted to meet Anna and learn more. Her strength and perseverance moved me. I knowing this is Yara's story too…To her, I give immense praise!


Highly recommended for Jodi Picoult fans!

I received an advanced copy of The Girls At 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib from St. Martins Press through NetGalley for a honest review. This poetic, emotionally harrowing story is about the struggles of anorexia. Eating disorders have devastating effects on the adolescents, women, and men who suffer from them and on the people who love them. This book thoroughly captures that, and yet it is a story filled with hope and compassion. I found the book difficult to read at times and had to put it down a couple of times, because it evoked so many emotions from anger, sadness, and empathy to full understanding.

Our society puts an extremely high value on beauty, on dieting/weight loss, and being the perfect size. All you have to do is turn on the television or flip through any magazine to find proof of that. But what often isn’t discussed or shown is what teenagers (especially young girls), women and men do to themselves to achieve that beauty, or to maintain the perfect weight/size. Anorexia is a biologically based disorder. Most often, anorexia emerges in early teenage years when a number of factors including, for some, the onset of dieting, converge. Dieting does not cause anorexia, but the reduction in calories that dieting causes can trigger the disorder in people who are genetically predisposed to it. However, there is a lot of pressure on some girls to be very thin. For instance, gymnasts, dancers, actresses, and models are often told by coaches, managers, or producers that they need to lose weight even when they are already thin. That’s why this novel is important and needed to be told, because eating disorders need to always be in the forefront of the discussion in mainstream society.

Book Synopsis:
Anna, a 26-year-old, checks into a treatment facility for anorexia at the behest of her beloved husband, who cannot continue to pretend she is not starving. It was not always like this: Once, Anna was a ballet dancer in Paris, where she and Matthias exuberantly fell in love. But then Anna got injured and stopped dancing, and Matthias took a job in St. Louis, and she followed, and now here she is in Bedroom 5 at 17 Swann St., amid a crew of other women, in varying states of distress. Where each day is a battle with food. Some of them will get better. Some of them won’t

26-year-old Anna is a former Parisian, former ballerina, and former woman with an identity outside of her eating disorder. Somewhere between following her husband to St. Louis and ending up in Bedroom 5 at 17 Swann Street, Anna’s all but disappeared. Her life revolves around food and denial, and not just denying herself food. Both Anna and her husband can only see how the disorder developed since coming to America. What Anna doesn’t want to see is how she’s been trying to erase herself for years.

The story itself is not an original one: dancer develops unhealthy eating habits to get the approval of fellow dancers and a man. Except that’s what Anna only wants to see, and what she only wants to share with her therapist. Through flashbacks, however, both the reader and Anna dig deeper into the root of the trauma that led Anna to this point, which includes wanting to get healthy.

The fellow patients at 17 Swann Street are constantly pointing out to Anna that, unlike so many of them, Anna has a reason to get healthy: her husband. And while it’s easy to dismiss this reason as not the “right” reason (shouldn’t Anna be wanting to get better, to live, for herself?), Zgheib demonstrates how nuanced the recovery process is. For some, like Anna, it’s easy to motivate them to want to get better because they have someone, or something, that they want to get better for.

In others, Zgheib shows the inability for some to function on their own outside of inpatient centers. This is where the title of the book is expertly demonstrated. These women aren’t women: they’re girls who need to remember how to be women, mentally and physically. And still, it is up to each patient to decide what returning to womanhood means (once they’ve achieved and are maintaining a healthy body weight).

The Girls at 17 Swann Street is a book that sneaks up on you with its depth. I was incredibly moved, not just by Anna’s story, but by the relationship between Anna and her husband. Anna is doing the hard work: she’s working on undoing years of thinking and acting one way about food. Yet, she’s still cognizant of how hard this (the separation, having had to watch his wife starve, the conflict of not understanding why he wasn’t enough to help her get better) is on her husband. And he does the most important thing anyone can do for someone in recovery or healing from anything: show up.

A surprisingly emotional read, The Girls on 17 Swann Street is a rare look into the relationship dynamics between patients and their partners and just how important they can be in the recovery process.

I received an Advanced Readers Copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I gave this book 5 stars. The story is about a young woman named Anna. Anna suffers from anorexia. 17 Swann Street is the rehab home for girls with eating disorders. We meet Emm, Julia, Sarah, and others. The author does a wonderful job of helping us understand some of the struggles going on within the minds of these girls. I couldn’t stop thinking about Anna and her husband and wishing her the courage to keep fighting her demons. I highly recommend this book!

Did you ever wonder what it feels like to have someone you love and care about have an eating condition? Well this book is the one to read. Often times families go through the same experience as the person affected by the disorder. This book is a must read. Thank you netgalley for an ARC copy of this book.

‘My name is Anna, and I have a life and people who love me waiting outside 17 Swann Street.’

We meet Anna Roux, as she enters 17 Swann Street, a residential eating disorder clinic. Anna is trying to reclaim her life from anorexia.

‘Occupation: I tell people I am a dancer. I have not danced in years, though. I work as a cashier in a supermarket, but my real occupation is anorexia.’

Anna had been a professional dancer, but when she followed her husband Matthias from Paris to Missouri, she found herself with plenty of time to dwell on her fears of failure and imperfection. Depressed and anorectic, Anna’s weight falls to eighty-eight pounds before she is forced to seek treatment. At 17 Swann Street, Anna is one of several women dealing with the life-threatening eating disorders of anorexia or bulimia. Treatment at 17 Swann Street is highly regimented: the women need are supervised as they eat the six meals they are required to eat each day.

‘The course of treatment for anorexia is painful but not impossible. If you really want to recover, you will.’

Anna’s story moves between past and present, with clinical notes and treatment plans related to her treatment. Through the views of the past, we come to see how Anna fell prey to anorexia. With Anna in the present, we see just how difficult life with eating disorders can be.

I found this a confronting read. The women need to stay at 17 Swann Street until they have a healthy BMI and have healthy eating habits. Some won’t make it: death will claim some, attempted suicide or being too fragile for residential treatment will see others moved into hospital. The women support each other. Each woman wants success for the others even if she is unable to claim success for herself.

And Anna? Anna may be more fortunate than some in that her husband Matthias cares deeply for her. But the battle for recovery is an internal one in which flawed perceptions need to be addressed. While aspects of the journey are common to all who fight eating disorders, each battle is an individual one. This novel is from Anna’s perspective, but we also get a sense of how her anorexia has impacted on her husband, father and sister.

Anyone can develop an eating disorder. It’s a cruel disease and difficult to manage. This beautifully written novel provides some insight as well as hope.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Zgheib’s debut novel is about a woman struggling in a battle against anorexia. Anna, a 26-year-old, checks into a treatment facility at the behest of her husband, who cannot continue to pretend she isn't starving.
Anna, was once a ballet dancer in Paris, where she and Matthias fell in love until she got injured and stopped dancing, Matthias got a job in St. Louis, and she followed, It is in Bedroom 5 at 17 Swann St., amongst a crew of other women, also in varying states of distress. At times fight treatment but eventually she comes around and is able to surrender to it.
I found this book to be touching and satisfying in all the right ways!

I received and advanced reader's copy for my honest review.

This book was absolutely phenomenal. I have never read a book about someone with an eating disorder, but I feel like this was a pretty good one to start with. We follow our main character Anna, through the very beginning of her anorexia through her treatment at 17 Swann Street. Her story was absolutely beautiful, and I have only love for her, the other girls, and Matthias. They all felt so real to me, and I felt like I could really understand Anna and her struggle with anorexia. I don't personally have such an extreme eating disorder, but I could still feel each and every one of her emotions as if they were my own. The story was so touching and heartbreaking all at the same time, and it did not gloss over or glorify any of the gritty details. While I cannot say that the representation of anorexia and bulimia are 100% percent accurate, I would like to think that this is a very good look into the lives of women trying to get treatment for these conditions. The story was just so beautiful, I was almost in tears multiple times. I would highly recommend this book to everyone.

The Girls at 17 Swann Street was a book unlike anything I've read in the last few years. It dove deep into emotions and felt like you were an actual fly on the wall of their experiences.

In my youth I was very intrigued by eating disorders and the havoc it wreaks on so many lives. I was semi-obsessed with Karen Carpenter and her story and still get emotional talking/reading/watching things about her. Anna and all the girls who are at 17 Swann Street will pull at your heartstrings with their stories and struggles. The time invested reading this book will be worth it, and you will feel you understand those struggling with anorexia nervosa so much more than beore you started.

**Many thanks to Net Galley & St Martin's Press for a copy to read and honestly review!**

This is a very sad book, but it does provide a clear picture of what someone with an eating disorder would be feeling. I found this to be heartbreaking that we live in a world where people feel the need to control their world through food intake. The storyline conveys the feelings and thoughts of someone going through these feelings very clearly. My heat broke for these women and I hope this book is able to help others.

This is a very real account of how anorexics think and their thought processes. Growing up with a sister who was anorexic and bulimic I can attest how accurate and crushing this book felt while reading it. Kudos to Yara Zgheib for her debut novel, a must read.

The book revolves around food and the struggle to eat or not to eat. Anna narrates the story of her life through flashbacks......her years as a dancer in France, meeting her husband and moving to the US, the slow removal of food from her life. Through her eyes we learn of her struggles in a residential treatment facility and those of her housemates, other women who struggle with food. There is kindness to each other, celebration of small successes (eating an entire bagel with cream cheese), and fear seeing the struggle of another.

This is not a book I would usually read, but Anna's story drew me in and I rallied for her to defeat the challenge of eating and fight for a life with her husband. I do recommend this book!

The digital book was provided to me from NetGalley free of charge in exchange for an honest review.

This was a heartbreaking debut novel that I know will stick me last past the last page. The book is beautifully written despite dealing with ugly realities that were hard to take in. The story does a great job of showing the real struggle with anorexia and anxiety that many woman face. Despite the tough subject matter the author managed to convey everything realistically (as far as I can tell) and yet with empathy and compassion. There are so many emotion connected with this book and so many lessons to take from it, regardless of whether you have suffered from an eating disorder or not. Overall I give the book 4 stars and highly recommend giving it a try!

My anorexia keeps me company, comforts me. I can control it, so I choose it."
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17 Swann Street is a house for women recovering (or hoping to recover) from eating disorders. Twenty-six year old Anna has just arrived. Anna, who moved to the U.S. from Paris with her loving husband, Mattias. Anna, who used dance, but who hadn't been able to find work as a dancer in years. Anna, who used to have a healthy relationship with food.
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The story is told from Anna's point of view, mixed in with flashbacks of Anna's life before anorexia up to just before she checked in at Swann Street, and doctor's notes. We meet the other girls at 17 Swann Street, and though we're following Anna, we get their stories, too, as they all struggle to recover together and piece their lives back together. It's pretty scary at times, to be sure, but it is a compelling and recommended read.

As an educator I always have students searching for books about eating disorders. This one intrigued me from the description and the title and led me to requesting a copy from NetGalley. This story is a tale of Anna, a 26 year old who has anorexia. The story moves between present day and her past experiences which led to her entering the residential facility to receive help for her disease.

What I Loved: I have read several books before about eating disorders, and this one does not distort the truth - the struggles, the reality that those who refuse to get better will die, and the anguish that this disease has on family and friends. I loved the relationship that Anna has with her husband and how he doesn't give up on her, even when he sees her struggling. I loved Anna's relationships with the other girls in the house. As she learns to love herself again, she also encourages the other girls to love themselves as well.

What I Wish There Was More Of: I wish there was more depth to the story. It didn't seem realistic that Anna was able to get better so quickly and maybe had there been more depth to the other characters I would have felt it to be realistic.

Overall - I am excited to pass along this title to students. They will connect and root for her too!