Customer Reviews

Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry (The Complete Idiot's Guide)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm on my knees thanking God for this book every night. I recently needed to brush up on my Chemistry. (I had Chem I in college.) I tried two other books before this one and they both sucked. The first one was Barron's Chemistry the Easy Way. HA! It was extremely confusing and poorly edited (wrong answers in the chapter tests). The second one was Chemistry Demystified and while it was much easier to follow, it also was poorly edited (lots of typos, mistakes, etc.)

After buying two really crappy books, I was ready to pull my hair out. But that's when I found The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry. <insert Hallelujah Chorus here>

While I did have a Chemistry class in college, I struggled through most of it. And I am really bad at math. So words like factor-label conversion and significant figures sent me into a complete panic. But the way Mr. Guch writes is so easy to follow and so non-threatening! Not to mention funny! He tells you exactly what you need to know and exactly how to do the calculations you need to do.

I cannot tell you how much I absolutely love this book. I am THISCLOSE to randomly spreading these books around anywhere struggling chemistry students live. If you or your child is having trouble with Chemistry, PLEASE get this book. You will not be sorry.

Some people are totally missing the point of this book, like some of the negative reviews below. (Insult to your intelligence? If you're so smart you'd know that you're not the target audience of this book.) This book is for those who are either doing General Chem for the first time or coming back after a long hiatus.

The author provides the basic fundementals of general chemistry in a good plain english text that is meant to complement, not replace your textbook. This book gave me a great boost in Chem class when I used it that way, usually by reading this book first when a new topic came up so as to get a synopsis and then going to the textbook for the gory details. This book goes a long way towards making Chemistry less intimidating and soon that big course textbook is not so threatening anymore.

I haven't had any chemistry since high school and felt the need to bring myself up to date as painlessly as possible. Although I felt that the book was successful in helping me with this, I found too many errors in problem answers and examples. At first, I thought I was having difficulty understanding the concepts, but as I went further into the book, I began to trust myself more than what was written in the book if something didn't make sense. I also needed to buy a chemistry textbook to help me with some concepts because some explanations were vague.

Please count me as an "idiot", because this book helped me a little bit, but rushed through some concepts. I'm currently in it and I'll give you some examples.
First, the hokey jokey stuff gets tiring to me. I do like analogies, but the jokes are a waste of time.
Second, the first few chapters are very easy and then, in chapter 5, they ask you to figure quantum orbitals, I think. And then they go into Electron configurations by telling you this element is in the "s" region and they don't show you where the "s" region is on the periodic table is.
He eases you in with a bunch of jokes and then spills acid on you. Not fun.
I need more description and less silly jokes

I purchased this book as an adjunct to the College textbook I was using. Most concepts are explained quite well, but a bit on the brief side. Also, there aren't enough problems with answers provided.

Finally, the book has many typos and often the answers provided to problems are incorrect. This caused a major loss of time and a lack of confidence in the book. I wrote the author and he said, I didn't have enough time for editing the book and suggested that i return it and get my money back.

I bought this book for my daughter Tiffany who has just started chemistry in highschool. At first getting her to do her homework was like pulling teeth, but since purchasing this book her chemistry home work is a breeze. Great explanations, and easy to follow. I would definitly reccomend this book!

There's never been a student who was as big an idiot as me before. I couldn't balance equations, didn't know what a mole was, and couldn't even stay awake in my class. And I'm a college student!

This book was great. It covered the main topics we did in class and got me through without any problems.

I read the reviews for this book here and don't know why people said the editing wasn't good. I found one mistake, but nearly all of the time I had problems with the book it was because *I* messed up and not the book. Maybe the other reviewers should check their work LOL!

It is just OK. Not quite as helpful as I had hoped. I am 52 yrs. old, returning to college to obtain my BSN. This book, unfortunately, does not share the same important ideas as the required text for class, and when it does, it is not much clearer than the text. So, I find myself not using it too much.

I am very, very thankful for myself that I chose this book over any other chemistry book.

My teacher does not know how to teach at all, so basically everyone in our class is not learning any materials that he/she needs to prepare him/herself for college or even AP classes. And I, with my idiot chem book, am acing every single quiz and test with this book - never below 90. People say that the best way to learn a subject is to read textbooks, but what am I suppose to do when the teacher doesnt follow textbook and the txtbook itself is complicated and unnecessarily wordy?

I can tell you, that this book is actually fun to read, and I am actually learning something from this book.

However I have to inform that this book does not go in dept; it's more like for high school level chemistry, which is perfect for me but for college or even higher, I am not very sure.

I can go on forever talking about how helpful this book is for me, but I would stop here since I made my point clear.

Buy this, and you will not regret, especially you are struggling with chemistry in HS and have NO idea what the heck is going on during your chem class.

Ian Guch is without any doubs a great teacher. He makes a highly technical subject fun, interesting and incorporates useful historical references in his book. This book is very comprehensive and helps you have a better picture of what chemistry is. Chemistry being very technical (at least it looks like it to the layman or woman for that matter), somebody who doesn't know chemistry will feel lost at some point. I am using this book to (re)familiarize myself with chemistry before taking college chemistry classes before going to nursing school. I wish Gush could be my teacher. He makes you feel anybody can be good at chemistry.