This book is required for my chemistry 1 course. I have taken 2 tests, and so far I have a "D" average in this class. The class is online, so I'm relying on this book to learn chemistry. As you can tell from my average, I have learned nothing from this book. I can't understand why colleges always require these VERY over-priced books that sucks. This book is the worst chemistry book that I have ever read - and I have read at least 7 chemistry books. Don't waste your money on this piece of garbage. If it wasn't so expensive, I would use it as a door-stop. By the way, the solutions manual that you can buy as a companion to this book sucks too.

Incoherence is not an opinion but rather a fact when it comes to associating that word with this book. Petrucci although as a long history with writing chemistry textbooks, still has not been able to provide an adequate explanation to some of the MOST basic concepts of chemistry.

I think he is probably a brilliant chemist as the questions in this book can be challenging; I found them trivial however. This is not because I deem myself intelligent (that goes without saying :) but the fact of the matter is that I had better books to rely on when I was studying undergraduate chemistry.

Silberberg and Malone's Basic Concepts of Chemistry where to two that got me through. I initially was given this book to study from and I found some of the chapters deadly boring.

How Petrucci explains and expounds and Acid-Base, and Quantum Chemistry is satisfactory, however organic chemistry, the concept of the mole and redox are chapters that accentuate the inarticulate nature and the overall dullness of the book.

This is not good becase fundamentally chemical reactions are about the transference, absorption and dissipation of energy which is normally expressed as the "movement of electrons". One of the principle topics in chemistry which first introduces this is redox.

Secondly the concept of the Mole and basic calculations are required and if an individual has only this book to rely on then there is not much hope that the student would get a good enough grasp of what is at hand.

Better Books:


Basic Concepts of Chemistry by Malone. A tried and tested book which takes a layman or (laywoman for that matter) and makes a chemist out of them.

Chemistry by Silberberg: very detailed explanations on various concepts.

Chemistry by Olmsted, if you are short on cash and need a book that does both of the above, then this is it. It is a fairy good book.

This book is the reason why half of the incoming premed population at tulane change to business majors. Please avoid at all cost. If you are assigned this book, go and buy it used so that you can just glimpse over it during class. Buy another better chemistry book and study from that.

First of all, good thing about this book is that it has lots of practice problems to work with. A lot of questions and exercise problems are sophiscated and challenging. Secondly, the explanations of the text are not confusing at all to me. The figures are well explained, too. ( I don't know why so many reviewers here say "confusing" about the book.)
It is overall a nice book. This book has a few calculation errors and typos but they shouldn't be a big problem for you to understand the concepts of chemistry.
Of course, I have seen better general chemistry books but this book does not confuse you much as long as you know how to read.