Keeping a spark of hope

I've just struggled through reading a book I bought a couple of years ago and hadn't read.  I realised why within a chapter of starting reading again.  The main character is a teenager who has technically died.  Her memories have been downloaded into an android body.  The book is about her struggle to come to terms with her changed circumstances and accept what she now is.

There's no denying she's gone through a traumatic change, but here's the thing: I couldn't care about her.  She's negative all the way through the book, and picks fights with everyone she meets, even other teens who've gone through the same process and understand her.  By the end of the book she still hasn't reached any kind of acceptance of her new life.  True, the androids are feared and hated by ordinary humans, but she hates herself and everyone else too.  

I can't care about her because the narrative has no spark of hope in it.  The story ends as gloomily as it began.  Thinking about it in terms of the character's journey, the only real change in her life is that she's alienated her last friend and has left home.  But the story ends without any hint that she's going to a better place.

I couldn't write a book about a traumatised character without adding a glimmer of hope to the story.  In my novel Eyemind, Bi is a quadriplegic Mind controlling a Supercruiser.  At the start of the book he's traumatised due to a recent attack on him where he was called a freak and told he should have died. He needs to be paired with a Mobile again before he goes crazy.  By the end of the book he's still paralysed, but he and Keri have formed a strong friendship.  Bi has regained his hope.

That's what I want to see in a story, some spark of the hero or heroine spirit that refuses to be extinguished, no matter how hard the test.  It's part of what makes characters unforgettable.