I had a good relantionship with Segdewick's books, before being turned off by Cormen a few times. They are less math focused, and overall have a beginner friendliness to them. They won't take you by the hand an explain things like you are 5, but nevertheless they are more easy to digest.

Also as a non-popular opinion in this current age, I recommend you to learn how to implement your algorithms in C, rather than an easier to grasp programming language. Even if you are probably not not going to program in C in your future career, understanding how memory management works will give you an edge later.

Also given C's loose style, you will also get some skills in organizing your code in a language that doesn't impose a lot of obvious constraints to the way you write your code. You will be able to build your own conventions, and evolve them once you get more skilled. Seeing what others are doing is also important.

Good luck!

PS: Don't fall into the macro trap, you will never get out. (inside joke).