I had two HS texts in two different chemistry classes. One was Addison-Wesley, and I thought it sucked. It dumbed down the chemistry to the point where it made no sense half the time and in some cases, it was just plain wrong. My second book was a first year college chemistry book that served its purposes very nicely. You certainly don't have to waste your time with wave functions when you first start out, but that can easily be skipped in the Pauling book. I'd rather suggest specific chapters of the Pauling book to read than to suggest a poorly-written HS book. If you have a good HS book, then fine. Otherwise, I'd start out with a General Chemistry college text. I suggested Pauling because it was cheap. Of course, I bought my Zumdahl text for $2 used, so that was cheaper.