Darkest Hour (Cutler Series #5) Book

Rated it four because I thought it was the best in the series. But it makes absolutely no sense that the sweet little girl I cried tears for grew up into Grandmother Cutler. It doesn't even seem as though a HUGE chunk of story was missing that would explain her change because there isn't much else one person can live through, and her past hadn't changed her so significantly by the end of the book save to make her smarter.
I have to look at this book as something separate from the other books, disassociate little Lilian from Grandma Cutler. Then, I can say I liked this character even more than I did Dawn or Christie. However, separating them causes another problem. As readers, we come in - regardless of how sophisticated we like to think we are - expecting a happy ending, especially after our protagonist suffers so... well sh*t, as a standalone, this one ends pretty dismally.
(Plus, the death of Niles was just f*ck*d up).