general

I have to differ from earlier negative reviews: this is a great book. It is clearly written, lavishly illustrated, and the CD is outstanding. The authors have put great effort into this book. They take it upon themselves to lead the student in many ways that make learning more effective. They cross-reference topics from earlier chapters that I as the student may have forgotten. They illustrate topics to make them tangible. They provide both theoretical and practical context for most topics. They created an exhaustive CD with great tools and movies and aids to learning. I may have a different perspective than some because I am a returning student and am familiar with some of the material. But unlike other textbooks I am also reviewing, this one feels complete instead of feeling that the author didn't quite complete a topic and expects me to go hunting for answers. I (obviously) recommend this book heartily, and I am not connected with any of the authors!

I have never been this disappointed with a text book since I started my education. This is coming from someone who was originally excited to take Chemistry. It was poorly written and organized, to the point that information you needed to solve examples were in later sections instead of the section you were studying. And worse of all - I have never seen a textbook with so many typographical errors - anywhere from misspelled words, to wrong solutions in the back of the book (my instructor and I went through the problems in which I thought were incorrect - and yes they really were incorrect in the book) to inconsistency in the chemicals they used in the problem. How could this book have even been released in this condition? I am also writing a letter to the publisher of this book.

This book is very poorly written and has a excessive typos and errors, especially in the answer section in the back - it's come to the point where if I get a different answer from the back of the book I usually assume it is the author who is wrong. It explains the concepts poorly, often over complicating them or leaving out vital pieces of information, or telling you about them a page after you really needed the information. It is not organized logically - we've ended up jumping around to different chapters to make it flow logically. Overall I'm not satisfied with this book on any level - I would have fired the person giving the go-ahead to print and distribute it if I'd been the publisher.