I'm not exactly the target audience (pretty handy with the front-end already) but I do know a lot of back-end developers who would find immense value in this book. A lot of the help I provide to more back-end focused devs is along the same lines: "here's what we need to do - here's why - here's a library/tool that makes this easier". I've actually been thinking lately about writing a similar book. Kudos to the author for putting this out there!
I have no basis for saying this, but I feel like I wouldn't want to work on a app built by a developer who taught themselves frontend with this book.<p>The focus on "AJAX contact forms, AJAX file uploads, Avatar Cropping" in the blurb is odd. It sounds like you'll be getting a rundown on some handrolled jQuery stuff.
I check rapidly the free sample and I found the use of Laravel framework to be irrelevant. All examples could have been done with simple Html and others front-end libraries. It will confuse novice people. Should have just focused on front end.