Book review: Bows and Ties
Bows and Ties is a collection of interviews conducted by Kavya Thakrar, a 16-year-old who considers what sisterhood means today. The interviewees, 19 in all, form an eclectic selection, from influencers to professionals in various fields.
Some are personally connected to Thakrar, others are connected through social media. Each brings a different set of values and opinions to what it is to be a woman in the 21st century.
This is Thakrar’s debut book, a “handbook for women of all ages”, as she stated in the LA Times’s High School Insider in 2025. Reading it from a distance of nearly 40 years since I was 16, I can identify with some of the ideas and applaud the writer for collating so many viewpoints. That is inspiring for women of her generation.
Once I started reading, it was easy to finish the book, which presents each interview in a question-and-answer format with a brief introduction to each interviewee. I hadn’t heard of any of them, but Thakrar explains why she chose them in context.
Each reader of Bows and Ties could nominate several women they would like to engage with in a similar format, depending on their position in life and career.
If you are interested in hearing about what other women think, this book is worth a look. Self-published, it sports a pink cover (I’m not necessarily a fan of this, but that’s a personal take), and is generally a good quality paperback.
Other books and media have assembled interviews with women (for example, Alison Oddey’s 1999 collection of Performing Women (actors), Rosemary Waugh’s 2024 Running The Room (theatre directors), and 100 Women (on BBC Sounds).
What Thakrar brings to the table is a teenage perspective and determination. I very much enjoyed reading the interviews (and searching for more information on who the interviewees were).
Does it have wide appeal to every woman in every generation? It’s a bold claim, but it is certainly readable and professional.
Bows and Ties, by Kavya Thakrar, is available on Amazon and you can also follow its Instagram account.
