I did get it, and I would argue this book made me a better engineer. People learn different ways and retain knowledge differently. Some folks do really well with technical manuals and minimal but factual informational, and some folks respond better to more novel approaches. _why's guide was definitely the latter, and a vocal group of people seemed to agree. While _why's version was definitely on the far side of novel, the approach itself was used in a whole series[0] of books. It's all good that it wasn't your thing, and you're not an idiot, it just wasn't your style.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_First_(book_series)