So, I have this textbook in combinatorics as part of my course in discrete math. Now, I'm not sure if this is a thing with all combinatorics textbooks, but it feels more like an advanced exercise book with some refreshers than a textbook meant for someone not very familiar with the field. Like, something you'd use to prepare for an exam or just kill time if you're already good at the subject, rather than using it to study from the ground up.
Basically, they explain something, provide a couple of easy exercises, and the difficulty then abruptly picks up and oftentimes they'll suddenly get the jump on you with solutions that have nothing to do with the material taught in the section. This is all nice and good, but it makes it impossible for me to actually get the hang of anything.
I think part of the reason is that the book is about 200 pages long and 50 pages are dedicated to detailed solutions, which are nice, but not as good as just more exercises.
I'm used to books that provide 50+ exercises at the end of each section, starting off easy and then gradually picking up in complexity until the questions are even harder than what you'd expect in an exam. Just to emphasize the importance of this - Calculus was a complete nightmare for me at first but the book I'm studying from gradually got me on good terms with the subject, and I eventually started to enjoy it so much that I kept on studying from it without realizing that I'm well into calculus 2 material, integrating left and right, and really looking forward to the calculus 3 stuff.
Now, I tried to google some recommendation, but every book I came across had one of two problems: it's either the same as the book I'm using right now (not enough exercises, so the difficulty picks up abruptly), or it has no solutions whatsoever to any of the problems.
I would greatly appreciate a good recommendation. I really do appreciate this field but I can't find any entry point that isn't a frustrating mess.
