The Book of Secrets

I thought I would enjoy this book much more than I did. It's well written and pays strong tribute to the power of books. The lonely heroine who is transformed by the Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle In Time, etc. could have been myself, and, I suspect, many other readers (I remember vividly thinking that if I just tried hard enough I could somehow end up in Narnia). All well and good, but the tone of Book of Secrets is so grim, and the hero/heroine both so damaged, that I couldn't see a future for the two of them at the book's conclusion. The message that Elizabeth Joy Arnold seems to be giving is that books are great but real life is crap - which is not what I expected when I started reading.