Why Chemical Reactions Happen isn't the most exhilarating of books, but it is a really nice 'intro' to uni level chemistry, although its much more academic than Bad Science.
Oxford chemistry primers tend to be good, although I'd stick to 'foundations of…' or 'introduction to…' books if I were you. There's the odd one that has quite an interesting title but is actually just some oxford professor copying their lecture notes from a 2nd/3rd year lecture course… Introduction to Quantum theory and Atomic Structure by Cox, and atomic spectra by Softley, were both interesting and reasonably approachable, IMO.
One thing to say though is definitely take notes! You probably won't get much out of it otherwise.