I found it too densely informative. After the 2nd or 3rd attempt I ditched it and just jumped into programming. Personal preference possibly. I think erlang's difficulty is exaggerated. Just jump in - the immediate little wins will lubricate the process.

"Densely informative" is the right way for a textbook to be, I think. You're not meant to read LYSE or books like it straight through; rather, each individual paragraph is dense enough with facts that after every one, you should stop and tinker with a toy example or two at the REPL to collect your thoughts and make sure you understand what's going on.

If you imagine someone teaching Erlang with LYSE serving as the actual textbook, they'd do what is done with most textbooks: split each chapter into rather small segments, and have you do exercises after each one to "interactively" absorb the knowledge.