The Girls at 17 Swann Street
Fiction
St. Martin's Press
February 5, 2019
Advanced reader copy
384
Free from publisher via Bookish First
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.
Yara Zgheib's poetic and poignant debut novel is a haunting, intimate journey of a young woman's struggle to reclaim her life. 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.
This was an intense look at the lives of those with eating disorders. Although I do not personally know of anyone who has ever had this disease, I thought this book was a heartbreaking account of what these sufferers go through. The characters were very real to me, and I wanted to reach into the book and help them. The statistic toward the end of the book says it all:
Only 33% of women with anorexia nervosa maintain full recovery after nine months. Of those, approximately one third will relapse after the nine month mark!
That is just staggering to me! I found myself on the verge of tears several times during my reading as I ached for Anna and the girls at the treatment house. The descriptions of what was going through her mind just while trying to get through a container of yogurt were crushing! The interactions between Anna and her ever patient and loving husband Matthias were heartbreaking at times, yet you knew that his love and strength were what she needed to break through. This is not a book for the faint of heart,and especially if eating disorders are a trigger for you. However, if you want to know more about this devastating disease, I would highly recommend.
This book will stay with me a long time, and I will think about the characters (as though they were real), and worry about their futures!
