Would read all these arguments/revisions if you ever feel like writing them out! I had a few of my own when I was reading, but they didn't stick when I was writing up the post. Like you, though, I really enjoyed it overall.
So I'm not of the Dorothy L. Sayers school of thought where all the clues to the solution have to be presented to the reader, such that the reader could themselves solve the mystery if they wanted to. But I do think the ending of a book should be connected to the beginning, by which I mean, in this context, the ending should take place in the same world as the beginning. It's just unfair if you set a reader up to think "ok, the solution to this mystery could be that Peachy's run off with another woman, or committed suicide, or has been kidnapped" and then the solution turns out to be "the Devil turned Peachy into a weird facsimile of Kit" when there has been no suggestion previously that something like that is possible in the world of the book.
While I enjoyed the metaphysical fantasy once the book went there, I also thought the fact that the Devil etc turned out to be real in a way even the most supernaturalist Christians would say is not the case in real life undermined much of the power of the arc regarding Elsa's struggle with faith, and made Kit's faith/recovery less impressive. Like, why not be a believer if you have solid evidence the Devil is a thing and can do things like transform people into other people.
Given the book does end up in the realm of metaphysical hijinks and that seems pretty core to the author's vision, I don't think there's anything you can do about the latter point -- it's baked into the concept. (A different version of the book, where Elsa does or does not return to Christianity based on the kind of experiences and influences you could have IRL, would be a good book and in some ways more interesting to me, but I think that's not the book Degan necessarily wanted to write.) But the worldbuilding stuff you can solve, and I don't think it would have been that difficult. The only hint you get that magic might be a thing is the weird guy who shows up at the cult parties -- can't remember what they call him, but Elsa describes his face/the effect of his presence in such a way that is fantastical. So I think the book just needed a lot more laying of the ground of that kind in the first, IDK, 70% (can't remember precisely when it is you find out Peachy was turned into Kit by the Devil, but it's an outrageously late point in the story). Another simple fix would be to have more dodgy rumours surrounding the cult -- like, maybe other people connected to it have gone missing and you could build up that mystery and indicate the solution is supernatural.
I also thought the book had a fairly standard issue where nothing much happens for large stretches and then a lot of stuff happens at the end, plus key scenes are recounted by characters to other characters rather than happening in front of the reader. But those issues would need bigger structural edits to address, such that it would be a very different book if they were fixed!
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So I'm not of the Dorothy L. Sayers school of thought where all the clues to the solution have to be presented to the reader, such that the reader could themselves solve the mystery if they wanted to. But I do think the ending of a book should be connected to the beginning, by which I mean, in this context, the ending should take place in the same world as the beginning. It's just unfair if you set a reader up to think "ok, the solution to this mystery could be that Peachy's run off with another woman, or committed suicide, or has been kidnapped" and then the solution turns out to be "the Devil turned Peachy into a weird facsimile of Kit" when there has been no suggestion previously that something like that is possible in the world of the book.
While I enjoyed the metaphysical fantasy once the book went there, I also thought the fact that the Devil etc turned out to be real in a way even the most supernaturalist Christians would say is not the case in real life undermined much of the power of the arc regarding Elsa's struggle with faith, and made Kit's faith/recovery less impressive. Like, why not be a believer if you have solid evidence the Devil is a thing and can do things like transform people into other people.
Given the book does end up in the realm of metaphysical hijinks and that seems pretty core to the author's vision, I don't think there's anything you can do about the latter point -- it's baked into the concept. (A different version of the book, where Elsa does or does not return to Christianity based on the kind of experiences and influences you could have IRL, would be a good book and in some ways more interesting to me, but I think that's not the book Degan necessarily wanted to write.) But the worldbuilding stuff you can solve, and I don't think it would have been that difficult. The only hint you get that magic might be a thing is the weird guy who shows up at the cult parties -- can't remember what they call him, but Elsa describes his face/the effect of his presence in such a way that is fantastical. So I think the book just needed a lot more laying of the ground of that kind in the first, IDK, 70% (can't remember precisely when it is you find out Peachy was turned into Kit by the Devil, but it's an outrageously late point in the story). Another simple fix would be to have more dodgy rumours surrounding the cult -- like, maybe other people connected to it have gone missing and you could build up that mystery and indicate the solution is supernatural.
I also thought the book had a fairly standard issue where nothing much happens for large stretches and then a lot of stuff happens at the end, plus key scenes are recounted by characters to other characters rather than happening in front of the reader. But those issues would need bigger structural edits to address, such that it would be a very different book if they were fixed!