I truly thought of mlseyf as a beginner, because I'm still horrible at playing and don't know many songs at all. But this book made me realize that I was very much beyond beginner status. I had lessons about 15 years ago for 4-5 years, but trust me, I'm still learning, and very much a beginner. By reading this book, with my limited, very limited experience, I felt like the equivalent of a college-grad returning to school to fine-tune his math skills, only to realize he was enlisted in Kindergarten-block-counting 101. Again, I'm not advanced, not even intermediate, and I found this book was the equivalent of what I learned back when I took lessons and my teacher probably taught me all of this material in the first month or two. Given this, perhaps this was the intent of this book to really start you off. However, one thing sticks out to me is the headline which states: Books 1, 2 and 3. The chapters are seperated into three sections there are no differentiations between these chapters, and a book. Sort of misleading. For the money I read through the entire book, played every single page re-learned (or verified) everything in about 2 hours. I am planning to return this. Not impressed with the Hal Leonard line after this one. I read all the reviews here on amazon, and was duped. I'm not sure where everyone is coming from with the raving reviews. I think many are teachers who just agree with the teaching method- not necessarily intersted in giving amazon customers a look into value'. I wonder how many raving reviewers actually bought and used the book to learn. Probably few.This book is not for people who have the slightest bit of experience with guitars of any kind. Think of it like sitting in on the first three classes of grade 9 math. You will NOT augment your skills in any way by using this book if you know anything whatsoever. Though it is difficult for me to be in your shoes, if you are a beginner, (please, if you have some experience, don't count yourself), but if you really are new to guitars, and don't