I was looking for a book that would give me a very fast start on writing VBA for Excel to do some engineering data manipulation and analysis, I had no previous experience with either VBA or VBA for applications (I knew other object oriented languages though). I started out by looking at one of Walkenbach's books for a week before giving up on it with no result. Initially, I took this book off my list due to bad reviews, but then looking at a bunch of books in a bookstore it was the only one that answered a simple question: "How do I create a new worksheet with the code?", none of the other 5 books I had in my hands could provide me an answer to that simple question. I bought the book and haven't regretted it. I needed that initial boost to start working with VBA for Excel as I haven't worked with it before, once I know the basics I can navigate further by myself and perhaps then other books will start making more sense to me.
I assume that the reason for negative reviews is the fact that the book is more basics oriented, but I couldn't find any other book that would give me that. And sorry, while help is good, it's still doesn't explain concepts well, it's simply a wonderful reference. So if you don't want to take a course in VBA and haven't worked with VBA for applications before - this might be a great book for you, I know it was for me.