Imagine if all you need to do everything is turn PSDs into HTML and your job title is programmer.

And then someone shows you this book and tells you that every good programmer loves this book and it is confusing. The reaction is always negative.

That is not the intended audience, it's a book about programming, not about some specific technology.

Well, yes, but the people giving it one star appear to not understand that they weren't the target audience. That's the point.

The book is not really about programming. It is more about thinking.

You can find two well-reasoned critiques at http://what-the-rain-knows.com/tag/krc/

The first one is by Philip Wadler, who's quite famous in Haskell circles. The second one is by Matthias Felleisen, is quite active in using Scheme to teach computer science.

Nobody of those says that SICP isn't a really great book.

Wadler claims that the book and a 'better' language would be an improvement.

Felleisen et.al. claim that the book does not prepare the students for software engineers in industry, is very difficult and thus is not the best book for a typical introductory course.

Even though I understand both critiques, I see their point of view and find both views valid, SICP is still * out of five stars.