Rating: 
Summary: B-o-o-o-o-o-ringggggggg
Review: I bought this book mainly going by the O'Reilly name which usually has excellent books (Java, Motif), but this book is like listening to a theoretical computer science prof. drone on and on... It literally took me three months to get through just chapter two. I kept falling asleep every time I tried to read it! Most of chapter two consists of cut-and-pasted bulleted lists each one defining a zillion terms w/o justification. So, we don't say 'acquired', we say 'captured'. Great! Can you say 'pedantic', boys and girls?Bottom line is that when an author keeps using big obfuscated words for no good reason where simpler ones would do (e.g. 'facilitate' v/s 'ease') you know you are in trouble. He is obviously writing to impress his colleagues, not to educate his readers...
Rating:
Summary: Terrible presentation Style
Review: My email to the author (emailto:salhir@earthlink.net) follows: Its rarely that I email an author about negative review. But this time through I am pretty sure it may be a good idea. So here goes..... I read only a short part of the book before I gave up because I found your style of presentation rather obscure and unreadable. The bulleted lists that make up most of the prose in the text are hard to read without a contextual commentary. The diagrams seem **really** interesting but unfortunately there is no discussion about the diagrams and their contexts. The diagrams are labeled but that still doesn't explain them well. I am hoping you get a chance to revise this book and correct some of this. Simply put- It seems to me like you have taken your personal notes (bulleted lists) and slapped them together with your diagrams to make this book. See what most of the other reviewers of your text at Amazon.com have to say. I find it surprising that O'Reilly did'nt find this to be a problem with the book Sorry that this is such a negative review but this is with a hope that next revision improves Jaideep (All the above are my views not my employer's views)
Rating:
Summary: Awful
Review: O'Reilly should really offer refunds on this book. It is unreadable. Buy Martin Fowler's UML Distilled instead.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't get through it
Review: Unlike any Oreilly book I've ever read, this is the very first I couldn't get through. Pedantic prose, opaque examples, and mind-numbingly dull descriptions have combined to leave me less knowledgable than before. This is the only oreilly book I've ever wanted to return. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: This book sucked.
Review: Sheesh, this book was written like the author took some of his bad Powerpoint slide and pasted it together and then published it. O'Reilly should ashamed!
Rating: 
Summary: bad examples, no narrative
Review: I was expecting a whole lot more. The examples are contrived and not very interesting. The prose consists of lists and lists. I remember picking up the first edition of Java in a Nutshell and basically figuring out the whole language from reading the first 40 pages. That is what I was expecting here and it did NOT deliver. I would return it if I could. As it is, I am trying to select a UML text for a course I am teaching, and I was hoping I had found an inexpensive choice that the students would be able to use as a reference, while giving a reasonable explanation of the basics of UML. Wrong.
Rating:
Summary: 'Bullet points' are not the same as 'a conceptual overview'.
Review: I've become accustomed to turning to O'Reilly books as my preferred source of technical material, mainly because I appreciate that their authors typically employ an enjoyable prose-style of writing. However, blind devotion hath wronged me mightily on the day I bought this book without scanning at least the first couple chapters. After just reading the preface, the entire first chapter seems like repetition- indeed, the preface gives just about the only really decent conceptual overview of UML in a readable fashion. The 'unique', as the author calls it, style of using bullet points instead of paragraphs is nothing short of mind-numbing. To start a paragraph with "The UML" and then immediately drop into about a dozen bullet points, must have been an intentional device to cause readers pain. After reading a dozen bullet points, all incomplete sentences that don't even sound right unless you make a mental note to repeat "The UML" before it, you tend to lose track of what the author's point was to begin with. The author may be technically competent, but prose certainly is not his forte. This book may be useful for it's 'reference' section, but reference books are a dime-a-dozen. I'd look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A theoretical view on the UML
Review: If you need a book to start everyday usage of the UML - this is a wrong book (almost no examples). If you are looking for a reference book - it is not the case, with the exception of OCL chapter and to the some extent the language extensions chapter. If you are interested in a kind of theoretically-abstract view on the UML, if you are not afraid of heavy style - than buy it. To understand the content and especially the diagrams you ought to apply unusually great efforts - and may be that is in a special way rewarding. I personally after going through the book feel ready to descend from abstract pinnacles to the practical ground (to use some how-to-make-it work manual) and feel that the difficult journey was useful.
Rating:
Summary: Ugh!!
Review: I completely (totally) concur (agree) with the other reviewer's assessment (review) of the book in listed on this page. If you find this style of writing annoying (aggravating) then you will not enjoy (like or appreciate) this book. The repetitive style and obtuse diction make this book unbearable. Don't even try to make sense out of the diagrams. I shall request a return of funds upon surrendering this item. I'm getting my money back. What happened here, O'Reilly?
Rating:
Summary: Awkward, all-night cram session
Review: Couldn't get past the first three chapters. The outline approach should have taken fewer words to describe the material, but the book failed. The text was overly wordy and cryptic. Imagine a lecture from your worst professor ever, but now you can't ask questions. The diagrams only make it worse. Author seemed very knowledgeable and two more times through the editor/review process would probably produce an excellent educated text on the material. Taking the book back and looking at some of the other reviewed books on this site. Had good experience with the "in a nutshell" brand, so bought the book without doing a serious flipthrough. Won't do that again.
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