The Girls at 17 Swann Street, Yara Zgheib
The Girls at 17 Swann Street, Yara Zgheib
List: $22.99 | Sale: $16.09
Club: $11.49

The Girls at 17 Swann Street
A Novel

Author: Yara Zgheib

Narrator: Saskia Maarleveld

Unabridged: 7 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/05/2019


Synopsis

"[Narrator Saskia Maarleveld's] tour de force reading perfectly encapsulates Anna’s anxieties, shame, and overwhelming guilt at failing to achieve perfection" — Booklist, starred review

**A People Pick for Best New Books**

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.

Praise for The Girls at 17 Swann Street:

"A singular celebration of the lifesaving power of community and small gestures." — New York Times Book Review

"Powerful and poetic...Zgheib's lyrical, dreamlike style...will resonate with fans of Wally Lamb's and Anne Tyler's novels and Augusten Burrough's memoirs." — Booklist

"Heartbreaking and beautiful...a brave book, stark in its realism, yet tempered by its lyrical prose." — Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Dream Daughter

About Yara Zgheib

Yara is a reader, writer, traveler, yogi, lover of art, wine, black and white photographs, popcorn, and jazz. She was born in Lebanon and has pieces of her heart scattered over Paris, Beirut, London, Boston, and a few villages in Tuscany.She is the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street and No Land to Light On, and writes weekly on culture, art, travel, and philosophy on her blog: The non-Utilitarian. Her essays are prose, poetry, musings, on things neither practical nor useful, but true and beautiful. Essential.Her writing has also appeared in The Huffington Post, The Four Seasons Magazine, HOLIDAY Magazine, The European, Womanscape, HOME Magazine, The Idea List, France Forward, Espresso Economics, A Woman’s Paris, The Socio/Log, and others.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Deanna

My reviews can also be seen at: [URL not allowed] I was really looking forward to reading this novel. I had some things to get done, so I thought I would just read a few pages and come back to it. But once I picked it up, I didn’t want to put it down, and before I knew it, I w......more

A compulsive read. I started reading this book last night. I read early this morning. I read when I went the gym and I read this afternoon until I finished it. I could not put it down, in spite of the fact that it’s an emotionally difficult book to read. I was taken to a place I have no understandin......more

4 poignant and inspiring stars for The Girls at Swann Street Anna Riux is a professional ballet dancer. Battling her emotional demons - imperfection, loneliness, failure, guilt - leads her on a dangerous downward spiral to anorexia and depression. To say that Anna's harrowing journey to reclaim her l......more


Quotes

"Heartbreaking and beautiful . . . a brave book, stark in its realism, yet tempered by its lyrical prose." - Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of The Dream Daughter

"Heart-wrenching and beautiful . . . a must read." - Erica Bauermeister, national bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients

"Written with spare, poetic grace, The Girls at 17 Swann Street is engaging, tragic and ultimately hopeful. It opened my eyes as well as my heart." - Susan Crandall, national bestselling author of The Myth of Perpetual Summer

"[Saskia] Maarleveld’s tour de force reading perfectly encapsulates Anna’s anxieties, shame, and overwhelming guilt ...so compellingly performed, emphasizes this powerful novel’s importance for mainstream and specialized collections." -Booklist, Starred Review