Genre: Contemporary Adult Fiction
Length: 384 pages
Audiobook Length: 7 hours and 49 minutes
First Published: 2019
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Publisher’s Description
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.
Quotes from The Girls at 17 Swann Street
The dark, ironically, makes many things far too clear.
About Yara Zgheib
Yara Zgheib is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters degree in Security Studies and a PhD in International Affairs in Diplomacy. She is a writer for several US and European magazines, and the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street and No Land to Light On.