I read this book with the hope of learning to read faster. I did learn to read faster, but barely. I increased my reading speed only slightly. Only a few of the tricks in this book helped me, because even though I already knew them, it was good to be reminded of them. Things like focusing on keywords, not letting the mind wander, avoiding subvocalization, and using peripheral vision.
The rest of the book not only didn't help, they positively slowed me down. Like the "pacers," which is the technique of using something to track your place as you read. I found pacers distracting, and it was annoying that every single chapter introduced a new variant on the same concept. Toward the end, the author harps a lot on the benefits of pre-viewing, skimming, and scanning. Pre-viewing, I found, was a waste of my time. Skimming and scanning aren't really reading, but simply a proactive way to avoid reading certain things, so I don't consider them speed reading techniques.
This book is based on a metaphor of car racing, and uses a lot of concepts and vocabulary from car racing. This was cheesy, but it didn't hurt.
The best thing about this book is that it's concise. 200 small pages was a breeze.