Considering how much is not in the book -- and that the book is not even that large as far as textbooks go -- part of me feels this criticism is somewhat dising

Considering how much is not in the book -- and that the book is not even that large as far as textbooks go -- part of me feels this criticism is somewhat disingenuous. I'd agree that the direction of the final part on research topics feels fragmented, but the rest of the book certainly doesn't. It's very clearly focused on developing deep neural networks and doesn't actually meander at all. If the worst you can say is it's not a classic text, that's really not saying much at all. I feel weird defending the book so much when to me it's just a book I found useful and I don't even feel that strongly towards it. But the strength of some of the criticism here doesn't seem motivated by the book itself.