Days before her 19th birthday, my best friend died in a car accident. She was obsessed with OTH while I had never watched an episode. The show became a way to stay connected with her. I watched every single episode with a special warmth in my heart and I have followed Sophia Bush’s career since. I’ve followed her activism, her twitter and her instagram. And in 2013 I had an experience I think few will get to live.

Sitting in my home in the Philippines, I saw someone post that their friend from Norway was incarcerated in Dubai after being raped by their colleague on a work trip. She went to the police for help and they put her in jail for admitting to having sex outside marriage. I was outraged. I knew this was the type of thing Sophia fought against, so I searched everywhere to find a news outlet that had written about it in English so I could send it to her and ask her for help.

She responded immediately, posted the link and the caption “This is an insult to women everywhere. #rapeculture #dubai #fail

I jumped on that, sent a copy of it to the biggest Norwegian newspapers saying that Hollywood actress Sophia Bush had tweeted about the incident. Someone else had gotten Mike Tyson to speak out against it, and we were off to the races. The hashtag #BoycottDubai was trending, and we pushed from every corner of the world until every news outlet was writing about it. The tweet went out July 19 – on July 22 she was pardoned and sent back to Norway. Dubai could not withstand the public outcry and wave of negative press. (And before anyone thinks this was a one-off horror story, similar cases kept happening for years. It took major legal reforms before consensual sex outside marriage was finally decriminalized in the UAE.)

That feeling, standing alone in my living room but feeling connected to the whole world, cannot be matched. I felt part of something bigger than myself. And we did it! We actually got to CHANGE a horrible situation. With just a tweet.

So that’s my starting point, reading Sophia’s memoir. I am clearly biased here, because I will always love her, for these reasons and many more. I chose to listen to this audiobook, because it’s narrated by Sophia herself. And personally I feel like there’s no better way to read a celebrity memoir than to have them read it to you. And I find her raspy voice incredibly charming.

The first thing that strikes me is that this isn’t a memoir attempting to tell the story of a whole life, but rather a collection of moments that have shaped it. The stories are told chronologically, but they’re not necessarily connected. And that’s fine, but much of the book feels like a look back at a series of “you had to be there” moments, or situations where we’re given an emotional payoff without enough context to become invested in the journey.

At one point she tells a story about the Obama White House farewell party. She’s reminded of it (girl, how is this something you forget?) and rushes to put something together. She talks about the people she has gotten to know there over the years, but all of this is new to us. She doesn’t mention visiting or working with the White House before this farewell party. And it’s hard for me as a reader to follow her down this emotional path when I’m only being clued in at the very end. I didn’t see the journey. I don’t know what it all means. She tears up at the hope and significance of it all, but I’m left dry.

And many of her stories operate in one of two modes – either everything is fantastic and it’s the most joyous, amazing, beautiful experience of her life – OR – we’re thrown into battle mode. Both with purple prose that reads like her lengthy instagram captions either honoring, celebrating or calling to action. This book barely scratches the surface on all fields, her personal life, her activism and her career and therefore doesn’t really give me any more sense of her as a person, but more an extension of her public persona.

I am no less fond of Sophia Bush, but I don’t feel like I got to know her any better through this book. These are all stories that have been out there for years, and while they’re sincere and often inspiring, they’re rarely revealing. And that’s okay, nobody is saying celebrities need to bear all and admit their deepest darkest thoughts and feelings. But it’s the most memorable ones that do.