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I bought this because I wanted to read whatever Frank Zappa wanted to write a book about.
Only, he didn't want to write a book. In fact, the very first sentence reads "I don't want to write a book, but I'm going to do it anyway, because Peter Occhiogrosso is going to help me."
This book is actually pretty damn cute, oddly enough. I had a little flick through when I first got it, and landed on a page with the title, centered and in bold: "My Fabulous Wife", with three photos (there are lots of black and white photos, a full-page illustration for each chapter, and random illustrations scattered around the book), of Gail placed neatly beneath it, followed by a little description of how they met. Adorable. I don't think I would have expected to see anything like that anywhere other than the secret diary of a much younger man. He also references the lyrics of some of his songs and uses them in describing certain events, people, situations, etc.

Frank Zappa was a composer / musician, definitely not a writer, and the way he writes seriously couldn't be further away from the way he speaks. He likes emphasis. Quite a lot. There's so much passionate FORMATTING AND CAPS! Frank couldn't get enough of it. The text is constantly emphasized using capitals, bold, italics, and underlining. He also manages to fit in 11 "(don't laugh)"'s into this book. Eleven. Again, cute, but it did get a little jarring after a while, but hey, that's obviously how he wanted it to be, and I wanted to read something by him, so there we go.

There was a definite sense that he started to get bored and frustrated with the whole book ordeal around three quarters of the way through, and the entire thing derails completely, veering away from the chronology of his life and music, and into pretty much whatever seems to pop into his mind at the time. The lyrical quotations die down, and he babbles passionately about his views on politics, some very.. interesting ideas about health, drugs, and cigarettes (because nicotine isn't really like those other drugs, okie?), and the general state of affairs occurring in the US and government around the time he was writing.

I knew people got tired of the ramblings, as I also did, but I still wanted to read this just because it's the only book he wrote. I decided I'd read this before reading any other book on his life. It's every bit worth it if you just wanted to read something by him.