George Anastasia wrote that the book "is not a mob tell-all, but rather a treatise on the demise of the American Mafia told from the perspective of someone ... who witnessed and experienced it firsthand." According to Anastasia, Bonanno "writes longingly of a better time when honor and loyalty, not guns and money, were the cornerstones of the Mafia. It is a fascinating description. But like so much else in "Bound by Honor", it is virtually unverifiable." "Publishers Weekly" said in its review that the book is "big on bluster and short on substance" and that the author's "only apparent goal is to exalt the world of his father". Discussing the allegation that Roselli fired from a storm drain in a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy, "PW" said: "overblown claims are just part of a bloviating style windy with references to 'our tradition' and 'our world,' phrases that would have struck a more resonant chord in the mid-70s, when Mario Puzo's books and Francis Ford Coppola's movies introduced the country to the peculiar mix of honor and violence that Bonanno crudely celebrates." Emil Franzi of the "Tucson Weekly" wrote: "This slice of high-level Mafia existence definitely belongs on the shelves of two different libraries -- collections on organized crime and those on the Kennedy assassination. Besides its obvious historical relevance, it's a fun read loaded with Tucson references."