Thoughts on "Attack with Black" by Valery Aveskulov for a beginner

I just started playing chess seriously this past month. Now as black I have decent responses to 1.e4 and I am trying to build a repertoire against 1.d4. I got the book "Attack with Black" by Valery Aveskulov which offers some great lines vs d4. 
Problem is so far I am just memorizing. 60% of the time I have no idea what the moves are about. I am not used to closed positional games. To me the book seems to repeat engine perfect moves to the reader with little explanation of the themes and plans. 
How can I improve my understanding to make the most of it?

These days videos are alot easier / better to learn openings from than books. I've found some value in books that aren't about specific openings but are just teaching chess principles. There are a good number of great classic chess books of this nature. But for an opening and various lines... it does help to be given an overview of the ideas along with the lines, but I'd only prefer to get this from a book if there's not a good course or video available online for the opening.

In the beginning I don't recommend going too deep in the opening though. Just know the first 4-5 moves. Instead I recommend people try out a variety of openings. So I don't think you really should buy a course on specific opening yet... for starters, you don't yet know what type of player you are or what you prefer. But on youtube HangingPawns has free videos introducing you to the basics of most openings, you can just watch those videos and try out different things. You shouldn't completely ignore the opening since you learn about chess principles through understanding the opening, you just shouldn't go super-deep yet. Wait until you're like 1700-1800 to develop a repertoire out to move 10-12.

The way I am practicing now is that I read the first 30 pages of the book, I put them in PGN format. I don't even use it as opening practice anymore, it's more like positional exercises. I use software to pull a random position from the PGN and try to find the next recommended move (which I miss 60% of the time). I didn't even make it to the bencko part yet, I am still on some Trompowsky lines. 
Let's say this position. The first few moves make sense up until we kick the bishop out with h6. And the book says it's a brilliant move, meanwhile my brain is looking at the b2 pawn and some potential queen move to threaten the rook....

You're talking about b7, not b2, right?

This is just an extremely sharp engine line, you'd need to memorize this one like 15 moves deep -

I recommend avoiding lines like that. At least until you're like 1800 rated. But even then... simpler is often better. If you really buckled down and memorized this / all the branches of it you could get some wins by the opponent falling into the trap, but that would require significant effort. I also am not sure if Qb5 is common enough here to justify that amount of effort, you'd need to consult a database on how often players play Qb5 here before you decided to invest that amount of energy in the line.

But you're not anywhere near highly rated enough where you should be doing anything remotely like this.

here's a simpler line that doesn't bring the queen out and still scores fine by the engine:

Until you're at least 1500, but really I'd say probably 1700, you shouldn't go any deeper than let's say 5-6 moves. You should focus on getting an overview of the different openings out there and the basic ideas, not going deep. If you are going to create a basic repertoire, for now choose simple, solid positions where there aren't these kinds of complications.

There are lines engines prefer which even GMs won't play because they're just too sharp to expect results in. Generally you should be careful when you select lines that you're not playing super-sharp engine lines which require you to play perfectly for like 15 moves. Especially when you're lower level, but I too would avoid your line there and prefer the simpler one.

At 800, you'd need only the first 5 moves of theory. After that you should know where the pieces go in the Benko, what you are trying to do and typical tactics. You'll get most of that from playing over GM games where black wins. That should get you well into the MG, usually with advantage.

To win after that you'll need to know basic strategy and basic endgames for whatever opening your play. Pachman is a good suggestion to study MGs.

I do not have an opinion on the book as I do not own it.

But if you think you're memorizing openings, I would suggest a book like Understanding the Chess Openings by Sam Collins. In the book, he covers most openings and provides lines, but also provides the key goals of each opening and how the moves played work towards those goals. I learned a lot from that book and it allowed me to navigate through openings I didn't know, simply because of the fact that once you know the goals, you can reason out the moves.

Thanks guys. Your advice actually improved my gameplay. I trimmed my repertoire a lot. . I got Silman's "Complete Book of Chess Strategy". I am starting to see things on the board now and I haven't even finished the book yet. I managed to beat a player around 1600 who spams the London. I went Old bennoni, he took the pawn (if he advanced I would probably have lost), 5 moves of theory and I played decent on my own. So far my gameplay is still awful in long boring positional games, I lose focus and patience. but I am working on it. In open games I am having fun am alive am focused.
So far I play Old bennoni vs d4 and scandinavian vs e4. They are unavoidable, nobody at my level prepares them, a few moves of theory until I spot a tactic, am focusing on the middlegame.