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  • The Girls at 17 Swann Street

  • Written by: Yara Zgheib
  • Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
  • Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)

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The Girls at 17 Swann Street

Written by: Yara Zgheib
Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
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Publisher's Summary

"[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 singular celebration of the lifesaving power of community and small gestures." (New York Times Book 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 88 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.

©2019 Yara Zgheib (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

What the critics say

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

"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)

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