I really liked this- I've been following the actions of Pussy Riot for years so was anxious to read this and it's certainly worth it. The lack of efficiency in the system, the barrage of human rights abuses in prisons, the breadth of travel across Russia to be dropped in awful conditions for the sake of singing a jokey tune in a church is an overt exercise of power. Masha's story is built on her own feminism and her determination to criticise a church and government that work hand in hand to reduce the rights of others. This is really worth the read, notably because Masha continued, while in prison, to fight for her fellow prisoners using her own 'political' status to improve their rights- even when it made her unpopular. Her spirit of resistance is monumental.

This is Maria Alyokhina, a feminist and member of the punk band, Pussy Riot's story. She and other members of her band protest in a church and she tells us in her own unique way about her arrest, her 2 year sentence, having to leave her young son and prison life. An interesting political story.

In this exceptional memoir, former Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina recounts the run up to and aftermath of the performance that had her arrested for "hooliganism" in 2012, documenting her time on the run, her arrest, trial and subsequent incarceration in a number of human-rights flouting prisons and penal colonies. Writing in stark and yet intensely poetic prose, she explores her experiences as an uncompromising dissident, a member of a collective, a fierce human rights activist, a friend, a mother. Strength and sheer will permeate this text and it is impossible not to be moved, impressed, downright astounded by Alyokhina's resilience, fortitude and clarity in the face of oppressive adversity. You really need to read this.

'We wrote and, letter by letter, we became a revolutionary statement'

Arrested for 'hooliganism' in a Moscow cathedral, this is Alyokhina's account of her arrest, trial and 2-year imprisonment in penal camps in the Urals. Young, intellectual, self-aware, her writing is fragmented yet vivid, locating itself alongside other texts of repression and institutional absurdity (1984, The Trial): 'officially there are no political prisoners in the Russian criminal justice system. But, in official quarters, they called me a 'political' - a political prisoner, that it.'

Impressionistic, angry, absolutely committed and unrepentant, not without a black sense of humour, Alyokhina confronts modern Russia head-on and refuses to step down: 'Freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day.' An important proponent of where art, feminism and activism coalesce.

Alyokhina is not a writer but has a strong voice and describes her experiences with humour and anger. This short memoir describes the protest she went to prison for, her trial and life in prison. She inspires with her defiant politics in the face of grinding bureaucracy and arbitrary abuse.