My Rating: 4 stars
As someone who loves to eat and have been a food lover
for practically my entire life, I will be honest in saying that I cannot
imagine what it would be like to not be able to eat, or to have such an aversion
to food that the mere thought of having to consume or even taste a little bit
of it is enough to cause crippling anxiety and stress to the point of near
heart attack. For the most part, I’m not
a picky eater in that I don’t have much preference on what I will or won’t eat
– I’m just as willing to eat the same foods over and over again as I am to try
something different every day. I also don’t believe in diets (unless it’s for
health reasons of course) because I don’t care all that much about how I look
physically – as long as I’m healthy and happy, that’s all that matters. We have a saying in Chinese that goes
something along the lines of “[being able] to eat is a blessing,” which is a
philosophy of sorts that I’ve always followed.
Given the above, it’s probably not difficult to
understand why I wouldn’t be able to relate personally to the main character Anna’s
struggle with anorexia in Yara Zgheib’s debut novel The Girls at 17 Swann Street. Despite the lack of personal connection
though, I did appreciate the story that Zgheib tried to tell and the realistic portrayal
of what it is like to suffer from an eating disorder, especially one as
devastating as anorexia (and bulimia). She
covered pretty much all aspects – from the constant physical, mental, and
emotional struggle to the toll it takes on family, friends and loved ones. I truly did feel for Anna at the various
stages of her journey, though I must also admit that I was also angered at
certain moments when she deliberately made certain decisions knowing how much
hurt it would cause, not just to herself, but also to everyone around her. With that said though, I couldn’t help
continuing to root for her, support her, and maintain hope in whatever progress
she is able to make, regardless of how big or small.
While the story was good and the characters were written
in a way that made us want to root for them every step of the way, the one complaint
I had with this book was the structure of the narrative (basically the
presentation of the story). Though
majority of the story was told in the present time, during Anna’s stay at the
treatment center, there were also snippets about Anna’s past as well as the
moments leading up to her admittance into the Swann Street center that were
interspersed throughout, which wasn’t a problem in and of itself, except that structurally,
the snippets were intertwined to the point that it became hard to tell where
one moment ended and the next began. I
know several reviewers mentioned the lack of proper punctuation for the
dialogue, specifically the use of italicized sentences to indicate dialogue
rather than the traditional quotation marks, which I definitely agree caused confusion
-- especially since Anna’s own thoughts were also in italics, so sometimes it
felt like the characters’ thoughts and conversations bled into each other. This made the story a bit hard to follow at
times. For me though, it was a bit more
of struggle because I had an ARC copy that was formatted oddly to begin with –
there were basically no spaces between the paragraphs and even between chapters,
so I felt like I was reading one run-on paragraph for 300+ pages. I eventually had to put my own “spacing” into
it in my head as I read, which was one of the reasons why it took me so long to
get through this one.
The issues with structure aside though, I would still
recommend this book for the powerful story it succeeds in telling as well as
the awareness it brings to the very real struggles of those with anorexia. I personally learned a lot, not just about
anorexia, but also about how much I’ve been taking for granted in my own
life. The thoughtfulness of the story definitely
made reading this a humbling experience for me!
Received ARC from
St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley
******************************************
About the Author:
Yara
Zgheib is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters degree in Security Studies
from Georgetown University and a PhD in International Affairs in
Diplomacy from Centre D'études Diplomatiques et Stratégiques in Paris.
She is fluent in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish. Yara is a writer
for several US and European magazines, including
The Huffington Post, The Four Seasons Magazine, A Woman’s Paris, The Idea List, and
Holiday Magazine. She writes on culture, art, travel, and philosophy on her blog, "Aristotle at Afternoon Tea" (
http://www.aristotleatafternoontea.com/).
About the Book:
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.
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