I don’t usually feel compelled to buy every cheapo notebook I see but every now and then I do find something at the supermarket that seems worth a try– this Peninsula notebook was one.

I’ve seen these at Giant and Stop & Shop supermarkets, and I believe I paid $5.99 or $6.99 for this pocket size journal. (I bought mine in 2015, so the prices may be different now.) It is the typical 3.5 x 5.5″ size, and for once really is exactly 3.5 x 5.5″ when I measured with my ruler. I have found that Moleskines are actually 3 5/8 x 5 9/16 to 5 5/8″ for comparable pocket size hardcovers. (And someday I’ll do a comparison on the wildly varying measurements of notebooks that are claimed to be “A6” size!)

When I bought this notebook, I seem to remember looking at the 3 or 4 examples they had on the shelf to try to find the one that was least wonky in terms of uneven covers. This one is still a little uneven and not quite square. And there are some marks on the cover that seem like they could be from extra glue. Not really surprising for a made-in-China product in this price range. But otherwise it feels fairly solid. The cover is made of a smooth material that feels a bit rubbery– it seems to attract dust and won’t slide easily into all pockets.

Inside, the usual spot for contact info, and a smallish back pocket made of paper. The binding is a little too tight to open completely flat– it only has 5 signatures for a total of 160 pages, vs. a comparable Moleskine usually having 12 signatures for a total of 192 pages. The lines on the pages are quite dark.

The ivory-toned paper is not particularly smooth, but feels good with fine-point pens and feathered less with fountain pens than I expected it to. (The texture is similar to that of the Shinola notebook I recently reviewed, but the Shinola showed more feathering.) Wetter pens did bleed a little but most of my fountain pens did not bleed, except for the M nib Preppy filled with Noodler’s Apache Sunset, and the Carbon ink pen. Show-through is average.

Peninsula notebooks are designed by a company called Leap Year Publishing, which is based in the USA. I was surprised to see that they actually  make a lot of other products such as kids art supplies and toys and games.

The nice thing about the Peninsula notebook is that it’s really cheap, and you might be able to grab one at your local supermarket. (There are also some available on Amazon, though the prices are much higher.) It’s pretty solid and the paper is better than you’d expect. There may be some minor quality issues and you should inspect them carefully before buying, but it’s not a bad little notebook for the price.