This is not a book I would recommend.
I assume that a book titled “UML 2 for Dummies” would be about UML 2, and a chapter entitled “Best Practices” would be about best practices for UML 2. Only that chapter appears before anything about UML 2 is presented. It’s really a collection of definitions and comments that the reader isn’t prepared for. For example, this gem says “Whenever you need to hide the internal parts of an object, use UML aggregation notation.” This might be a good tip in a section about UML aggregation notation, only by page 25, no UML notation has been presented at all.
The book seems to be largely focused on topics for software developers, but the examples used to explain some very important concepts are not software examples. I found the explanations fuzzy and not very enlightening.
When finally in Chapter 3 we actually get to see some UML 2, the the thing shown in Figure 3-4 is something generally not used and that the author recommends you not use. So here’s a an obscure detail presented in the middle of the most basic introductory section, and gets it’s wrong (or the text describing the diagram is wrong). The text says the arrow points to a “class”, but in the diagram the arrow points to an anonymous object. I guess I’ll have to consult some other book to see whether the diagram is wrong or the text is wrong.
This is just a shoddy piece of work, and I’m sorry I bought it.