I bought this book not because I want to give my friends Photoshop boob jobs or change their hair color -- but because it is an excellent guide to Photoshop's features, both for beginners and as a reference for more intermediate users.
As people, we are wired to notice facial details. What is the difference between blur and smudge? When would you use the healing brush instead of the patch tool? And what is the good of all of those blending modes? When you see these effects applied to a person's face, it is very easy to understand the function of Photoshop's tools, and the sometimes subtle differences between them.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has found more conventional Photoshop tutorials dauntingly ... boring, or who has found himself saying, "OK, the sponge tool does this -- but what *good* is it?" This book has enabled me to use a much wider range of tools in my own work -- industrial documention -- and so has made me a far more effective Photoshopper. And I have never yet performed Photoshop liposuction.