This book was the designated book for a class I was taking as part of the HeadStart program at uOttawa. This is not the greatest book for teaching the language in my opinion.
Granted this is designed for complete beginners (which I am not), but it seems to miss quite a bit of the nuances of the language. For the most part it disregards such things as dual, plural, past, future tenses, most of the grammar of the language, and doesn't really have any verbs.
If you've got a terrible teacher for the course, you're not going to enjoy it. My prof for this course (Afifa Haddad) was one of the two funniest of my teachers this semester (although my English prof was pretty cool too).
Another peeve was the narration on the included DVD. This was a bit hit-and-miss with a few of the speakers being wonderful, and a few of them completely unintelligible, even for someone who has at the very least a passing (if not greater) familiarity with spoken Arabic.
All in all unless this is a mandatory part of your course I would skip it.
It costs quite a pretty penny too, weighing in at approximately $90 Canadian, brand new. Even buying it secondhand I payed $45 Canadian. Not exactly the cheapest book out there. ( )

You need to start learning Arabic somewhere. Of the several courses I have tried (Rosetta Stone, private tutor, and MIIS class), this is the best book for learning the Arabic alphabet I used. Although it would be possible to use this book on your own and become proficient at the alphabet's sounds and writing, an instructor helps. Also, the DVD is great a showing proper script techniques. ( )