Yeah, part of the problem in the forum is that the people who can help you best don't have a clue what any of the projects are, because they've never bought a starter kit.
One simple thing you could do is use the IDE's auto-format tool (CTRL-T) and see if the code still looks like the code in the book.
Otherwise, put "Serial.begin (9600);" in setup (), and then dot some "Serial.print ("variable name"); Serial.print (variable name);" for the different variables around your code.
e.g.
int onOffSwitchState = digitalRead(onOffSwitchStateSwitchPin);
Serial.print ("onOffSwitchState = "); Serial.println (onOffSwitchState);