Heartbreaking, haunting, and poignant, this intimate look into eating disorders is a solid debut effort for Yara Zgheib. Her writing is quite good, but the characters were underdeveloped. I wanted more of Anna's and the other residents' backstories. Some of the staff are referred to as "Direct Care" and it is never explained who they are whereas all of the other Swann Street staff have names. I wasn't sure if this was an attempt at Zgheib to make Anna seem as though she didn't care enough to learn their names. For these reasons, the book feels unfinished.
Zgheib juxtaposes Anna's unhealthy relationships with men against her eating disorder. She is a woman that is reliant on a man to save her when she needs to save herself. Her relationships with men are unhealthy as is her relationship with food.
My main criticism is that the both the dialogue and past events are set in italics. I'm uncertain as to why some authors choose not to use quotation marks for speech—it is confusing and hopefully this will be corrected in the final version. I also found it trite that the main character was named Anna and she has anorexia, I think a name change is in order.
Zgheib juxtaposes Anna's unhealthy relationships with men against her eating disorder. She is a woman that is reliant on a man to save her when she needs to save herself. Her relationships with men are unhealthy as is her relationship with food.
My main criticism is that the both the dialogue and past events are set in italics. I'm uncertain as to why some authors choose not to use quotation marks for speech—it is confusing and hopefully this will be corrected in the final version. I also found it trite that the main character was named Anna and she has anorexia, I think a name change is in order.