Kokuyo Campus High Grade CYO-BO Paper Notebook - B5 (6.9" X 9.8") - 34 Lines X 80 Sheets - Blue Cover

You think to yourself "Self? Would you pay $19 for a notebook?" Not if it was one you could get a Staples. American notebooks are basically cheap nasty paper only good for ball point pens - you can't use fountain pens in them. But wait! If you buy a pack of five you pay a little over $10 each. Still steep? NO!!

I journal every morning (well I try to) and I love to write with my lovely Lamy foutain pens filled with Noodler's inks. I've been writing in a Mead top spiral bound for years because they USED to be great notebooks. They are about $5 each and I have a pile of them. I'm also doing a lot of writing and I just generally use notebooks for lists, ranting and ideas.

I use a lot of notebooks.

I opened this notebook and ran my hand over the page. SILK!! I rubbed a page between my fingers and it's so thick and sturdy I almost cried. The line spacing was so small - I write very small and this is PERFECT! (I always buy college rule and it's still not small enough - this is perfect! Oops - said that already) I got my juiciest fountain pen that bleeds right through the Mead paper and tired it out. You could only see it from the other side if you held it up to some light.

I also use a lot of sketchbooks and prefer to work in 7x9 sizes. This is a little bit bigger than that and it would fit in my bag perfectly unlike my big honking letter size + spiral Mead. The cover folds back easily and you can work in this notebook with it folded in half, you are not forced to work flat. The wire is actually comfortable up against your hand (I hate having my hand on the spiral when I am writing on the left hand page thus why I use top bound notebooks). If I could get this in top bound I would be in heaven, but this is very minor.

Would I pay $10-12 for a notebook like this? You bet - I'm buying the five pack today. Sorry Mead - you just went bye bye!

Its definitely a great notebook, though expensive. The review before mine is accurate, paper quality is very good, the notebook is sturdy, and very enjoyable to write in. The paper is so smooth and obviously top of the line because at 80 pages its thicker than 100 pages of regular notebook paper, almost double the thickness/weight.
If you need a notebook for something really special, like a gift or a journal, give this High-grade notebook a try. They're probably too expensive for "'just" taking notes in class...but honestly, if you use the coupon or just want to splurge, its such a joy to write on these beautiful pages, you'll start looking for opportunities to write in them....