Rating: 
Summary: A lot of words to explain a few graphical notations...
Review: Like a lot of books ( Yourdon, Ward - Mellor , etc.. ) about analysis and design: a lot of words ( 589 pages ) to say very few new thinks and to explain a few graphical conventions that could be explained in 10 pages. If you are a beginner you can find all the provided ideas at the same time that you read a tutorial about C++ and learn a concrete OO language, for example the Stroustrup book. I agree with another reader comment saying that Booch ego is notable. He uses the third person ( majestic plural) when refers to him... He provides a bibliography so big that goes form Aquinas and Plato to Wirth to give you an idea about what you need to read to become a methodology guru.
Rating: 
Summary: Great , tough Book, not for beginners or Non C++ programmers
Review: Mixed opinions about the book. The author never claims that beginners can easily understand nor he warrants that you need not know C++. It may take sevaral months or years to read this book. If you say you know this book for 100%, you are only few steps away from Booch's level. His process is great if we have the time, patience and comfort to follow it and apply it. You should have some prior knowledge of OO to understand Booch's language. Of course C++ basics. Though the chapter on Booch Notaion is dated, you still need to read it to follow the remaining chapters. But if you have read UML, booch notation is not tough to understand. I wish he re-writes with additional Java examples and gives some business applications like banking/insurance examples rather than Gardening Sensors and Heaters, and also drop notations chapter and assume that readers know UML. It will be great if he guides us how his process fits into the internet era within tons of frameworks/patterns around.
Rating: 
Summary: Nice Try.
Review: Nice try Booch. I love programming, but I absolutely hated this book. In fact my whole class hated it and we did not keep our feelings in. This is not a book for beginning programmers. Booch tries to gorge you with too much information. He does have some cute little pictures though.
Rating: 
Summary: A classic, but a little difficult to read
Review: The author has what I would call an "academic" writing style which makes the book a bit more difficult to read than it needs to be. It is full of great information, but sometimes you will have to read a paragraph several times to fully understand it. This is not necessarily bad, but if you prefer a more practical or conversational style you should probably find another book. The book thoroughly covers all of the fundamental concepts of object oriented design in a language-independent way. Although there are some C++ code samples they are brief and it is not necessary for the reader to have a C++ background to learn the OO concepts presented in the book. Even though there are newer books out there you still should consider this one because the concepts presented such as encapsulation and polymorphism have not changed and are well covered in this classic work.
Rating:
Summary: Definately one of the most over-rated OO books around
Review: There are a lot of real stinkers around in the world of OO books, and, whilst this one is certainly not the worst of them, it is indeed basically void of the kind of conciseness, content and wisdom that one finds in, say, Object-Oriented Software Construction 2ed (Meyer). Mr Booch's work - be it this book or UML - clearly has a stong biased towards C++ and greenhouse-sensory-devices. This is not a problem in itself, but it will prove to be of little benefit to anyone who needs to construct a banking application using a real object-oriented language such as Eiffel or Smalltalk.
Rating:
Summary: Great for real OOP and design
Review: This book (and its excellent predecessor) were never intended to be beginning programming books. The audience (as noted in the preface) consists of programmers, analysts, program managers, tool builders, and students who need to "begin acquiring several important skills in the science and are of developing _complex systems_" (emphasis mine). I.e., not a book for beginners. However, it does two very important things. It teaches object oriented concepts at the abstract level and uses real applications to teach practice. Most OOP books use very small nonsense examples. This is easily one of the best technical books I have read.
Rating: 
Summary: Why does it have to be so hard?
Review: This book contains quite a lot of essential information about OOAD. Too bad that the author makes no effort to explain it clearly. In fact I feel that the author made every effort to explain things in the hardest way possible. It might be a tactic to discourage the casual reader. It might be that the author thinks that making things easy to understand would degrade and spoil the fun of learning such difficult concepts. Whatever the reason personally I think that if you have to write a book you should make it easy for your readers to understand what you want to say. Too bad because I think that the book is well rounded and contains a lot of useful data. Buy it only if you have plenty of time to read the book carefully, over and over again.
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Summary: MUST READ MY REVIEW BEFORE U BUY IT
Review: This book is a great book. If you need any inside information on this book, you *must* e-mail me at ukim@csee.usf.edu. I can be a help.
Rating:
Summary: PRESCHOOLERS MAY BASH THIS BOOK BUT ITS GOOD
Review: This book is not for 3rd grade students! It is for IT professionals already familiary with some form of development that can benefit from an OO development perspective. If people are looking for a 1+1 = 2 books, then go back to kindergarden. I've read a few bashing remarks about this book being illegible and unnecessarily confusing. It is not. I read most of this book, and i must say it is a great reference on Object-Oriented design considerations. He makes every attempt to give real world examples in his writing, something even a cat could probably make out.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated somewhat dated book of great historical importance
Review: This book is of immense historical importance. The author is brilliant and influential. Still I do prefer Bertrand Meyer, Meilir Page Jones and Martin Fowler. They are much clearer and to the point. It is difficult to fairly judge this book. So many of the ideas are now commonplace that it is hard to see the unique points of the author. Clearly the Booch notation is unique. But this notation is now also a problem. It is superseded by UML. It is also difficult to figure out the authors' unique point, because this book is filled with myriads of citations. Some of the cited works I know quite well and strangely enough reading Booches version of their work makes their special appeal disappear.
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