Honestly, when I first thought about this readalong idea, I thought Evil Elizabeth was part of this little mini arc. Ah, well, lesson learned, LOL. We can read that one next year - hopefully its better! (Or at least has some sort of internal logic.)

Yeah, the 'past' plot idea didn't make much sense for all the reasons you listed, plus the idea that somehow Eva survived and everyone knew that her doll (????) was buried instead of her body. Why didn't anyone think that maybe, just maybe, that meant she wasn't actually dead? Who buries someone without a body?

Lila is way too good for her weird little mini subplot in this final book. Is the dude she was hanging out with an actual character or just some weird one-off? And yeah, that whole trick or treating stuff was weird. Maybe they do things differently in California? Like how they apparently plant new plants in October and expect them to grow?

And speaking of secondary characters, Steven was absolutely awful in this series. I don't remember him being such an asshole, in such a consistent fashion, in SVT. And gruesome! Scaring so many people with his weird Eva costume *shudder*