Does this stink or is it me? It's so unlike the rest of LR. Do I just need to spend more time learning it? What other options are there for designing a book?
Other options would include the systems provided by higher quality digital presses companies. I design all my books, clients’ or my own, in InDesign. There really are no shortcuts to quality reproductions: first, design the book; choose and format the images, with any luck your printer will provide an ICC profile for the paper your book will be printed on - that may well require a trip to PS to convert to cmyk, soft-proof, and make a properly sized file; place that file in InDesign; and most likely end up with a correctly pre-flighted press quality PDF.
In Canada, for single or very few copies of a book, an excellent provider is Pikto (Pikto.ca). They have their own publishing software, or you can use one of their PS or InDesign templates, they provide ICC profiles, and you can choose between 4, 5 or 7 inks systems.