Things I Told My Notes App

by Milly Goldsmith

Growing up in a world where conditional love was the norm, Milly struggled to break free from the cycle of seeking validation through male attention. Her life revolved around relationships and desiring romantic pursuits, yet this only led to further heartbreak. In a drastic attempt to change, Milly began asking herself what she truly wanted from life.

Comprised of short, honest reflections on everything from self-worth to the impact of male validation, Things I Told My Notes App is the essential guide on how to choose yourself. Through personal stories and raw honesty, Milly shares how freeing it is to start appreciating the beautiful things that make you unique.

This passionate guide to living life on your own terms celebrates the beauty of being single and finding happiness within yourself. It encourages women on a healing journey to live authentically and embrace their true selves. In Things I Told My Notes App, Milly redefines what it means to be single and empowers women to seek more for themselves than just romantic love.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Memoir, Self Help, Biography

5 pages, Audiobook

Published June 25, 2026

Reviews

[Alona]

I wrote a really long review then deleted it lol but i just don’t think influencers who haven’t done anything with their lives other than be influencers and go to random events deserve a space in the literary world and i obviously knew that going into this so I shouldn’t have read it bc it was rage bait for me lol

THE WORD LOL SHOULD NOT BE IN PUBLISHED BOOKS!!!!!!!! :))))))) AND HER EXPERIENCE IS NOT UNIQUE like babe this is what growing up as a teenage girl is like?????? So privileged I honestly can’t ugh and that’s not to say I don’t wish her the best, I DO and I hope this was healing and therapeutic for her I just think we need to amplify stories that are different and give readers a fresh perspective rather than create this echo chamber and I just hope younger generations have bigger dreams than being an influencer

[becca]

This book reflects a generation increasingly encouraged to interpret ordinary life through psychological frameworks and therapeutic buzzwords, feeding a growing market of therapy, self-help books, coaching and wellness retreats. This creates a culture that profits from convincing us we are works in progress.

For anyone interested in why young women are increasingly encouraged to see themselves as ongoing psychological projects, this book is, unintentionally, an illuminating example of the culture it represents.

[Abbey Bedenbaugh]

Ehhh it was fine. If I had not listened on audiobook I doubt I would have completed this book. While I found many bits and pieces relatable, I didn’t find the writing to be of great substance or significance. However, I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, no hate.

[Isabel]

disappointingly self-absorbed worldview and devoid of any inspiring substance tbh

[Katya Nikitina]

A tik toker does not an author make.

[mimi]

Lowkey a hate read. Self indulgent didn’t gather much from this xx

[Ella-Grace Harwood]

After reading some of the reviews, I’m genuinely a bit shocked because… I really enjoyed this?!

Maybe I’m exactly the target audience. I went to an all-girls school, so naturally spent my formative years viewing boys as a mysterious alien species whose motives could neither be understood nor predicted. A book featuring questionable romantic decisions, overthinking and retrospective analysis? Unfortunately, I’m seated.

It made me laugh, it made me smile, and mostly it felt like reading someone’s diary; personal, chaotic, occasionally self-indulgent and full of thoughts that probably made much more sense at 1am. Which, to be fair, is essentially what the Notes app was invented for.

This did inspire me to check my own Notes app for similarly profound reflections on life, love and the self. Mine currently contains mortgage repayment calculations, work notes, shopping lists, random addresses and several completely contextless entries that even I can no longer decipher. One simply says “52+13=65???” So, sadly, my literary debut remains some way off.

I also don’t really understand the criticism that she uses language she’s clearly picked up from therapy or university. Isn’t that… the point of learning things? We experience something, learn the language to describe it, identify our patterns, name them (and occasionally shame them), and hopefully move on. God forbid a woman attends therapy and then actually uses something she learned there.

Yes, there’s introspection. Yes, there’s therapy-speak. But I found the reflections on identity, relationships, family and the idea of the self genuinely interesting.

And sure, I don’t have the luxury/absolute nightmare of being an influencer. I have a normal job, a mortgage and apparently the world’s least publishable Notes app. But strangely enough, I can still read about another person’s experiences and sympathise with them, relate to them, laugh at them and occasionally think, “Oh God, I’ve done that.”

Maybe that’s why I liked it. It didn’t need to be groundbreaking or universally relatable. It just felt human, funny, messy and personal.

[Zoe]

I guess I should get started on my debut novel cause anything can get published these days 🫨 all of these notes app thoughts are just thoughts that every woman has ever had - nothing mind blowing! sorry milly

[alexandra]

Important enough messages but not sure a book is the right format?

Get yourself a Substack babe!!

[liv (≧▽≦)]

Okay I don't want to be too harsh here because at the end of the day, this is about someones life, but I also have so much to say as to why even giving this person a publishing deal with a horrible decision.

I had no idea who Milly Goldsmith was before reading, but I was disappointed to learn that she is an influencer. And this is just a compilation of things she's written in her notes app (which I should have known by the title). On the one hand, I can see this resonating and being helpful to young teenage girls, specifically because it is TRYING to give classic teenage girl advice about beauty, self-love and not people pleasing etc. and I say all that trying to give the benefit of the doubt considering this was not written by a psychologist, a writer or anyone with actual life experience....

On the other hand, here are the things that pissed me off in no particular order:
- This is the perspective of a rich white straight women. Why on earth do we need another book sharing this perspective when it's exactly the same as every single other book in this genre? Dolly Alderton did it first, and Joan Didion before that and so on.
- The worst thing that seems to have happened to her is that she is the youngest child... no like seriously she writes a whole chapter about it.
- She constantly says she is decentering men from her life but then continues to beg for their attention. This is not the feminist manifesto you think it is, it is just another 20-something women living her life to please men.
- She complains about how hard her life is and how she's always busy so it's hard to make time for herself... girl you're an INFLUENCER... try working a real job. you get paid to take holidays omg shut up.
- Totally self-absorbed. Never has a single thought about anyone other than herself (or men).
- This could have been a substack post and it read like one of my goodreads reviews lol (literally LOL was published multiple times which feels like a crime).

I'm not saying you need to have struggled in life to write a book and get a publishing deal, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in my mouth that one of the most privileged individuals who lives a cushy lifestyle has the gall to complain about it in a serious book and expect the general publics sympathy.

[Isobelle Offlands]

Audiobook
Read like a podcast… LOVED. So relatable but also very real about Millys own experiences, expectations and privilege. A good listen on a journey, long walk or as a female in the 20s-30s

[Tanya Hill]

Not sure influencers should be getting book deals and had I realised that before using Spotify hours I would have searched for something else

[Tessa]

really enjoyed it, as in a very relatable & validating (we have the same attachment style so that helped lol) and a good and easy read for a summer vacay. did I learn anything new - no. did I expect to - also no :)

[Sophie McEntegart]

Very meh. Don’t feel “lol” should be used in a published book IMO

[Clare]

did the journal factory explode??? this really could’ve stayed in her notes app

[Taylah]

DNF at 60%
Sorry but there is nothing revolutionary or interesting in this book written by an influencer (I didn’t realise until she referenced it frequently throughout).
It’s just Temu ‘everything I know about love’

[Rose Swallow]

This should have stayed in her notes app.

Posh white girl complains about her first world problems for a few hours. When I saw the reviews I thought it would be good but she has had such a privileged life and is just nit-picking bad things that have happened to her, like just suck it up and get on with it.

Maybe I am being cruel because if this is truly how she feels then who am I to judge, I am a woman in my twenties who also has first world problems and rants to my friends about them. But god if I wrote a book like this I’d hope the people in my life would slap me and tell me not to publish it because the bottom line is I have it easy compared to other people and so does she.

[Kat]

Inability to DNF got the better of me

[Katie Davis]

This is a classic example why it is not necessary for influencers to write books, there was 0 substance to that

[Charlotte]

Thank you Milly for writing about normal things girls in their late twenties go through & think about. Felt so relatable, so real life. Thank you for sharing your notes app with the world. I enjoyed it very much & can’t wait for more in the future 😉 no pressure though. For now I will just watch your journal style videos 🥰🥰

[Karis]

Not really sure what she’s trying to achieve with this one. Maybe to be relatable? But instead it actually put me off 😬 however I do like the podcast feel for an audiobook 🙌🏼 super short read if you needed a break from your current book!

[Ash Chantzos]

Girl down bad

[Hannah Mohd-Rawi]

No hate to the author but goddam I couldn't finish it. The most entitled whining I've ever heard. Whoever said you need to read this in your 20s was lying.

Why am I listening to some girl moan about how she can't tell her parents she loves them when they've literally done nothing but say they love her but she has a whole chapter talking about how she can't say it back.

Why am I listening to her talk about One direction and Justin Bieber for one whole chapter.

None of the little I had listened to was worth my time or relatable in the slightest and to me it came across as an entitled girl moaning about the smallest things in life when there are much bigger issues in life. Maybe I've judged too soon and I should have finished it but if I had been reading the book I would have given up sooner and the listening to the book was still a waste of my time.

Once again, no hate and maybe there is someone out there who will like this book but it ain't me.

[cora]

I read quite a few reviews of this book before reading it myself and they were all a bit harsh in my opinion.
A lot of the other reviews were claiming her thoughts and ideas to not be original enough, too self centered, typical influencer shit. But to be honest, self centered or not, influencer or not, obvious thoughts or not, the experiences and feelings she shares are still her experiences and most likely a lot of her experiences are the same or similar to those a lot of other women/ teenagers do have. Her vulnerability allows for the reader to feel comforted no matter if they can relate or not and for that I believe she should be much more appreciated than criticized.

In this book Milly speaks of her experience with dating, rejection, self-doubt, friends, family, changes, body image, eating behavior, fitting in, success and much more.

I don’t think the depth of this book is mind blowingly crazy or that I learned wild new takes. I would even go so far as to say she displays a lot of “life wisdom” you can find in a lot of different books, movies or reels. But I do believe it would have been the kind of book I would have appreciated when I was 14 and for that I liked it.

(And also if the only reason people write a review is to bash influencers it never was about the book in the first place, just saying) (don’t go read a book written by an online persona if you can’t handle them talking about themselves)

That’s all.

[abigail]

Influencers should really stick to podcasts. I can see what she was trying to do but it fell quite flat and the language felt very childish. I’d just read Dolly Alderton instead honestly.

[Emma]

Had een review gelezen die zei de Bridget Jones van nu en ja ik ben het daar mee eens!

[Silke Drevel]

Wanne be Dolly Alderton isn't doing it for me

[Brigetterose]

This might be an enjoyable book for a young teen. Not adults

[Flora Finlayson]

Hate that I used my Spotify listening hours on this. Why was the word “lol” used so many times?? I skipped a bunch of chapters because this was so poorly written with endless therapy buzzwords.

[Lily Newstead]

Going to be honest, I only pre ordered this book to be entered into a giveaway and win a MacBook and facegym facial and some other fun bits, of course I didn’t win so I started reading this book with a bit of hostility.
Milly isn’t my fave influencer, I do like her but I was thinking I’d buy this book when it had a deal on in a few months.
Lovely easy read tho, digestible and not too long for the topic. Sometimes books like this can drag and feel boring, and don’t get me wrong it wasn’t easy the whole way through, but mostly was good.
Sometimes I found her a bit ‘woe is me’ and self-obsessed but as I reflected, surely that’s what a book like this is meant to be? And she is quite self aware of this which I respect. So I tried to keep this in mind.
But apart from that it was a great read, and she is so sweet. It felt very real.
Well done girly xxx