As someone learning Rust right now (reading through The Book and doing rustlings), most of the basic concepts have been straight forward and easily carried over from the languages I currently work with.

However, as someone who hasn't touched c or c++ in the 20 years or so since university, the ownership stuff has made my brain hurt. That section in The Book has been a real slog for me and I've had go through that section several times now, but still haven't truly 'got it' yet.

All that said, I do like the compiler helping ensure I'm writing good code and in that regards, I can see why the author says that Rust is easy. Instead of beating your head on a desk trying to track down some obscure bug, with Rust, there's a good chance it'll tell you where the bug is and why it won't let you compile (at least based on my beginner understanding).