The first of a two-volume textbook for college General Chemistry students, this book takes a "novel" approach on two fronts. It's written and formatted in a way that encourages it be read just like any other book, while also eschewing many of the traditional tropes of traditional chemistry textbooks. Figures, graphs and tables are embedded within the text itself, usually without labels or captions, in an attempt to keep the "narrative flow" going. Similarly, sample calculations are presented in a step-by-step fashion to mimic how an instructor would guide a student through a problem if he or she were doing it in person.