I'm a beginner with basically no background in algebraic number theory, and am close to finishing Number Theory 2: Introduction to Class Field Theory by Kato, Kurokawa, Saito.
I love this book - it does a good job explaining the big pictures of number theory (e.g. the local-global philosophy) and providing motivation. It begins with concrete examples of what class field theory says - this is one thing I wanted. Throughout the book, they state theorems and their consequences and postpone the proofs, but still give proofs eventually. I really like this style, as it prevents getting bogged down in proofs. The last section claims to outline the proof of the main theorems of class field theory, but I haven't read it yet. I have not read Volume 1, and was able to get through Volume 2 without any difficulty.