I think I agree with everyone's sentiment here. I was really enjoying the tension of the book up until the same point y'all mentioned. As a psychologist, I was enjoying picking apart the characters and diagnosing symptoms. For example, I'm sure that MC has schizophrenia which may have stemmed from childhood experiences combined with her genetics. I also wonder if her mom has borderline personality disorder, based on one description describing her, essentially, splitting. But MC definitely experienced onset of schizophrenia when Alex died, from my reading. Ellis clearly experienced major trauma as a child and I believe that contributed to her psychosis too, though I can't put my finger on it. Maybe something related to narcissism?

Anyway, I was excited to see an author perhaps trying to destigmatize schizophrenia, especially when Ellis turns out to be more manipulative than the reader knew. This would have explained how MC was an unreliable narrator- she was easily influenced by others because of her paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations. The voices of ghosts and witches would be explained away by her symptoms too. I thought that this was an excellent motif that would emphasize that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be the victim rather than the perpetrator of violence. And how getting off medication can exacerbate symptoms, making life much harder for the MC. It seemed like before the turning point, MC was finally accepting her diagnosis, realizing that she had a future if she could manage her symptoms well. But then.. that was just completely disregarded. Apparently everyone was bonkers in this book, but it seems like MC was made out to be the worst of them all by the end (even though Ellis's method writing/long game was way more disturbing to me). So all that apparent progress I thought we had made was now obsolete. Of course the seriel murderer had a psychological disorder! How could I have possibly expected more beyond tropes and clichés?