IIRC, the falseness of the ending is a large part of drcpunk's objection to the book. It didn't bother me, but I tend to read de Lint as anecdotal popcorn rather than trying to make sense of his plots, especially when he gets a touch incoherent; it clearly has major flaws, mostly on storyline logic (and on the likablity of Izzy? I don't remember her well, which makes me think that's probably the case :).

OTOH, well...the -quality- of the book isn't why we recommended it.

I think you'll probably like Someplace to be Flying better (in fact, that was the one both Drcpunk and YT thought of first as actual recommendations).