Review:
I'll start by saying that I am definitely not a high school student. I picked this up because I was curious about the format - if I enjoyed it, I figured I might try tackling one of the volumes on a subject I was shakier on.
This is divided into 12 units ("Basics of Biology," "The Chemistry of Life," "Cell Theory," "Bacteria, Viruses, Prions, and Viroids," "Protists," "Fungi," "Plants," "Animals," "The Human Body," "Genetics," "Life on Earth," and "Ecosystems and Habitats"). The text is set up to look like notes someone took on lined paper, with occasional highlighted bits, drawings in the margins, underlined portions, etc. Each chapter ends with review questions and answers.
My overall opinion of this is: meh. My eyes glazed over at about the same points where I generally had trouble in school (I'm looking at you, Unit 2). My favorite chapters were probably the ones on algae, molds, and fungi, because they covered info I don't recall learning before. That said, there are probably better, more memorable books out there on those topics for someone like myself, who is reading for enjoyment rather than to study for a test.
Speaking of the study guide aspects: I doubt just reading this book would ever have helped me much when I was a student, even if I forced myself to do the review questions. I did best with notes I actually took myself. This book also missed a bunch of opportunities to explicitly connect concepts mentioned across multiple chapters (not even a brief "remember, [Topic] was discussed in more detail back in Chapter X" - yes, there's an index, but in-text recognition of the relatedness of subjects would have been nice).
Assuming the other volumes are similar to this one, I don't think I'll be seeking out the rest.
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