A very interesting read! This book is a collection of interviews with influencing women of power from across the world. It covers a range of topics and it's interesting how each woman has answered differently to each question as they all come from different backgrounds and have different influences in their lives.
The only criticism I would give is that it could have included more women from today. I appreciate that the answers have been collated over a number of years but I felt like there could have been other contributors from today's world.
I liked how it's set out, however it could have done with the biographies of each contributer at the beginning and not the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher Watkins Publishing for this advanced copy in exchange of an honest review.

This book promises so much but it fails to deliver. First of all, I'd have like to know more about the names that are mentioned. It is hard to follow their opinions without knowing why they are among the "powerful women".
Illustrations or photos would have made this book more engaging.
Some of the interviewers' answers are so short and uninteresting that it seems like the writer caught them while they are shopping for groceries. Or she just found them on the internet and copy pasted.
I wanted to love this book but just couldn't make myself continue reading it.

This collection made me want to scream "GIRL POWER" at the top of my lungs, so I think that says it all!

Voices of Powerful Women

Edited by Zoe Sallis

Available in Hardback and ebook

Firstly lets just look at this gorgeous cover on this book. If that doesn't make you want to pick up the book and read it immediately then you best read the rest of this review.

Voices of Powerful Women is a collection of interviews with 40 empowering and inspiring women* ranging from actresses, writers, politicians, activists, athletes and artists. Zoe Sallis has collated these interviews over many years and presented them in this inspiring book which frankly should be handed out to everybody, and it should be compulsory to read extracts from this book when you're having a bad day and you need a lift to get out a pit of doom.

The topics are wide ranging, and gives a platform (with no analysis) for the interviewees voice and opinions on the topics of spiritual and religious beliefs, recommendations, their greatest fear, tackling poverty, who inspires them. This book provides an intimate view into the world views of these women, and I'm hoping it will inspire readers to be more bolder with their views and to speak out about the things that matter in this world.

This is an inspiring book, and is very important for today's society where the voices of women are slowly becoming louder. You can but Voices of Powerful Women from your favourite bookshop.


*The women interviewed in this book include: Isabel Allende, Christiane Amanpour, Maya Angelou, Hanan Ashrawi, Joan Baez, Benazir Bhutto, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, Emma Bonino, Shami Chakrabarti, Jung Chang, Kate Clinton, Marie Colvin, Marion Cotillard, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Carla Del Ponte, Judi Dench, Shirin Ebadi, Tracey Emin, Jane Fonda, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Dagmar Havlova, Swanee Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Natasa Kandic, Kathy Kelly, Martha Lane Fox, Dame Ann Leslie, Professor Wangari Maathai, Mairead Maguire, Mary McAleese, Soledad O'Brien, Sinead O'Connor, Yoko Ono, Mariane Pearl, Kim Phuc, Paloma Picasso, Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, Paula Rego, Louise Ridley, Mary Robinson, Jody Williams.

I was sent an ebook version of this ebook from Netgalley.

Love reading about strong women, especially in this day and age. Well researched and written and a quick read for me. Just enough info.

My first observation of the book is that the Kindle DRC I received has some fairly obvious formatting issues, which I hope will be rectified before publishing. However, the cover art is gorgeous!

Voices of Powerful Women (henceforth called “Voices”) is a non-fiction collection of questions and answers from various inspirational women. From actresses and artists, to presidents and activists, there are 40 women whose answers to specific questions have been collated by Zoe Sallis.

These are the women who have been interviewed for the book:

Isabel Allende, Christiane Amanpour, Maya Angelou, Hanan Ashrawi, Joan Baez, Benazir Bhutto, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt, Emma Bonino, Shami Chakrabarti, Jung Chang, Kate Clinton, Marie Colvin, Marion Cotillard, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Carla Del Ponte, Judi Dench, Shirin Ebadi, Tracey Emin, Jane Fonda, Tanni Grey-Thompson, Dagmar Havlová, Swanee Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Nataša Kandić, Kathy Kelly, Martha Lane Fox, Dame Ann Leslie, Professor Wangari Maathai, Mairead Maguire, Mary McAleese, Soledad O’Brien, Sinéad O’Connor, Yoko Ono, Mariane Pearl, Kim Phuc, Paloma Picasso, Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ, Paula Rego, Louise Ridley, Mary Robinson, Jody Williams.

Now, I confess I don’t know who all of these women are. I would have liked to have seen a short biography at the beginning of the book so that the answers from these women had context? It is all very well and good for them to be commenting on their unusual or traumatic childhoods and how it influenced them in their adult years, but we don’t know what they do or who they are. I don’t want to keep putting a book down to google each person mentioned. I also didn’t know there was a short biography on each woman until the very end. That would have been much more beneficial at the beginning.

There are some really harrowing tales from these women and some deeply profound accounts of experiences of war and oppression. Honestly, though, some of the answers were less than inspiring. It was perhaps because I didn’t know the context of their experiences that I was unable to feel touched or inspired by them? Really, I think listing every single response to the questions is a little boring, I would have much preferred to see cherry-picked answers, not necessarily including the irrelevant or uninteresting.

That is not to say that there were contributors who were uninteresting, I simply mean that not every question produced an interesting or inspiring answer from every single woman.

“WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR? Yoko Ono: I fear to lose freedom by being fearful.”

I found the format of Question followed by 40 answers to be disjointed and disconnected. I didn’t have a chance to get inside the mind of each contributor before we moved on to the next answer. Perhaps it would have been more effective to have a section on each woman, ask the questions and present their carefully chosen answers based on their interest and relevance.

I honestly became bored of reading answer after answer “I am”, “I am”, “I am”. I wanted to hear about what was behind the responses that were shared. Okay, so you were inspired by your terrible childhood in a warzone. Why? What happened? How does it influence you now? The answers lack depth and they lack context.

I didn’t HATE this book, I really feel like if the formatting and layout of the book were different, it would be an inspiring and empowering read. I have three daughters, I’m always on the lookout for books like this for them to read, I want them to be empowered by the experiences and teachings of other strong women. This could be exactly that book. As it is, I was left a little disappointed.

The women who contribute to this book are fascinating. Individually they have wisdom that is truly remarkable. I really think Zoe Sallis has created a potentially potent collection of mini-memoirs. If each chapter was based on one woman, it would make the reading so much more enjoyable. I could see myself reading a chapter a night with my girls so they can learn about the different lives of such empowering women. I do think that I will still buy this as a hard copy once it is released. I would like to see if the formatting and layout are improved.

For now, I give Voices: 3/5 stars


I feel terrible for not being able to give it more stars, the feminist in me is shaking her head right now. It really is just down to personal taste. Having read other reviewers thoughts, I see that some people loved it and some not-so-much.

Wow. What a wonderful inspirational read. This book should be read by everyone male and female. A great book club choice. Wonderful interviews of inspirational women. Fabulous read.

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

So often it's the voice of women that is marginalised and sidelined in a world that is still unfairly dominated by men. That is why I was drawn to this book because I believe it's important to amplify and listen to the voice of women. In Voices of Powerful Women, 40 extraordinary and inspirational women are asked ten different questions on topics ranging from who inspires them, will there ever be an end to poverty, what is their greatest fear and much more. Zoe Sallis interviewed each woman and provides 200+ pages containing their answers.

The answers to each question are grouped together to make up the ten main chapters. The range of contributors is diverse, including actresses, politicians, activists and athletes (amongst other groups) from all round the globe. In fact, I was quite surprised to not recognise all the names which was a very positive and educational dimension for me when reading this book.

The book itself is an interesting read. As each chapter is centred on a different question it is sometimes hard to gain a full appreciation of the personality of each voice given the opportunity to share their perspective. On the one hand, this is a positive expression with the words of these women given space to speak for themselves. There is no analysis or critique; no questioning if they are right or wrong. That is completely refreshing. However, on the other hand, the book sometimes feels frustratingly disjointed and jumps around a little too much for my liking. Indeed, those words seem disconnected from the person who has said them, particularly if you are not familiar with the work of that woman. The format does not lend itself to build a proper picture of each of these 40 powerful women and for me, that was a shame. I was pleased when I got to the end and found that there was a section about each contributor - I had previously used the internet to research the names I was not familiar with.

Don't let me put you off as there is plenty to like about this book. It is ambitious and enlightening and there are lots of different voices providing competing perspectives on the role of women in the world. I was particularly drawn to the range of answers offered in the chapter where each of the women were asked "What spiritual or religious beliefs do you hold?" I was also moved when I discovered that Benazir Bhutto, the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, had actually been assassinated shortly after the interview in 2007.

Ultimately, the subtitle is the best reflection of what this book is: we are treated to words of wisdom from 40 inspiring women on a variety of topics. I have learnt a lot and enjoyed this brief snapshot into the lives of this diverse collection of women.

This is an important book. I really loved hearing all of the different women's voices, opinions, and arguments. It was eye opening whether or not I personally agreed with the particular statement or not. Some of the women I know a lot about and some are new to me. This was nice as it gives me a chance to learn about new activists that I hadn't previously been aware of. Really important book. Highly recommend to everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book to review.

Thank you to netgalley and publisher for the copy for an honest review.

This is a collection of questions answered by a collection of women who have become empowered by their careers, upbringing or beliefs. They have strong voices and are women unafraid to say what they mean.

I enjoyed the insight into their lives/thoughts; with interesting questions that are thought provoking for the reader as well as the women being interviewed. I knew some of the women and loved their answers but it was the women I wasn’t familiar with that really caught my attention.

I liked how the book is laid out- each chapter a new question that gets answered by each woman. There were some formatting issues on this copy but I’d hope that will be rectified.

An easy, read that is interesting both to men and women alike.

Each chapter is laid out as a question with different women providing insight into their lives by their responses. The questions are often thought provoking and the responses are incredibly honest. Some of the women I was very familiar with and others I want to learn more about. The collection is well edited and a quick easy read. Hopefully the layout/formatting issues I experienced will be resolved before publication.

A very powerful, inspiring book. Interviews with different inspiring women from the glove covering a wide range of themes. Highly recommended to everyone to read, men and women. A totally inspiring and thought provoking read.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I just read this very inspiring and thought provoking book where the author interviewed 40 different inspiring women from lots of different backgrounds and different beliefs and asked them 10 different questions about varied topics such as what inspires them, fears they have and some questions on how women can change the world if men would let them in everyday life main problems being in politics.
I really loved how in the women’s answers we got to learn bits and pieces from there childhood or even just growing up because even though I knew quite a few of the women being interviewed itt was nice being introduced to these very inspirational and inspiring women that I had never heard from before.
I loved aswell how in the last question where it asked about any music art or peices of writing that inspired them because it really made me want to read or listen to and read all the books and music they were talking about.
Overall I would give this book a 4/5 stars very enjoyable and would very much recommend to anyone