Apprentice to the Flower Poet Z. by Debra Weinstein: This is a fairly enjoyable book about a young assistant to a famous poet/professor in the mid-1980s. She is a bit of a naive sort who welcomes the opportunity while also getting involved with a slightly off graduate student. Annabelle's experience with the poet's dysfunctional family and colleagues is told in an amusing style, though nothing too surprising occurs.
This results in the book eventually not going anywhere, but one only realizes this around the final few chapters, so it isn't too upsetting. As suggested by my earlier mention of this book, the novel starts off better than it ends, as if this first effort did not quite have the inspiration behind it for a very good ending (one that also seemed a bit rushed). The first sentence does kind of promise a bit more, so one feels a little gypped, but I still found it a good summer read.