This actress's African "gap year" story is so unbelievable she's been accused of making it up.

It’s a classic epic of “voluntourism” gone awry.

A young, idealistic white woman fresh out of an elite private college wants to give back to the world.

So she hops on a plane to “Africa” wanting only to help poor, starving children, but inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a civil war, her naive pipe dream soon becoming a life-affirming fight for survival. In a jungle setting, obviously.

Such is the florid nature of Scottish actor Louis Linton’s new biography In Congo’s Shadow, which has already drawn significant ire after an excerpt from it was published by The Telegraph.

(It’s been shredded. She has been absolutely torn to bits.)

This is Louise Linton. Source: Getty

Social media users had particular fun mocking her long night hiding from rebels "on the jungle floor, in a fragile minefield of vines crawling with potentially lethal creatures".

They even started a hashtag: #LintonLies

Basically, in the memoir, an 18-year-old Linton descends on Zambia with a Princess Di-esque air of do-goodery and "hopes of helping some of the world’s poorest people".

Apparently she then quickly befriended the local villagers finding "special comfort in my bond with Zimba, a six-year-old orphan girl with HIV".

When the nearby Hutu-Tutsi conflict in neighbouring Congo suddenly spilled over into her new home, she was faced with a confronting choice:

"Should I stay and care for Zimba, risking my life? Or flee to the safety of my family and break her heart?"

"I tried not to think what the rebels would do to the 'skinny white muzungu with long angel hair' if they found me."

Many have questioned the factual accuracy of her story.

Many more have questioned her 'Clueless Goes To Africa' level of naivety.

Either way, it's well worth reading the whole mess in it's entirety (not to mention having a scroll through the hashtag), but for now I'll leave you with this - the final passage:

"Now that I’m a grown woman living in California and pursuing a very different dream – as an actress and film producer – I know that the skinny white girl once so incongruous in Africa still lives on inside me.

"Even in this world where I’m supposed to belong, I still sometimes feel out of place. Whenever that happens, though, I try to remember a smiling gap-toothed child with HIV whose greatest joy was to sit on my lap and drink from a bottle of Coca-Cola.

"Zimba taught me many beautiful words but the one I like the most is Nsansa. Happiness."

And here's Those Two Girls discussing the most annoying happens of recently returned white holiday-goers: