Chabay assumes you have never seen electricity before. Consequently, the first two chapters are very slow (defining current as $dQ/dt$ philosophically). However, by Chapter 5, the difficulty spikes exponentially. The book uses (Biot-Savart) heavily, and it expects you to visualize fields in 3D space, not just on a flat page.
Ditching the formula sheet for fundamental principles.
It turns electromagnetism from a collection of "Maxwell's Equations" to memorize into a coherent story about fields, momentum, and energy.