Dear Evan Hansen – Val Emmich

Dear Evan Hansen, tells the story of when a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family’s grief over the loss of their son. Evan is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just must stick to a lie he never meant to tell. This is that notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend.  This means that Evan isn’t invisible anymore.

Dear Evan Hansen, is the Tony Award winning Best Musical of 2017 and it has been adapted into a Young Adult novel! I love the musical and listen to the soundtrack an awful lot so as soon as I found out there was going to be a novel based on the musical I had to give it a read.

This novel allows you to take a more in-depth look into the lives of the two main characters Evan and Connor. Both Connor and Evan struggle with depression and anxiety and were classed as “lonely” teenagers in high school.

The pacing in this novel was excellent it was constantly paced perfectly with what was happening in the book. The ending was rush though in my opinion. The build up of the book lasted till around 85% and the ending and the big reveal was given the last 15% of the book. I like books to be quite evenly spread out and especially with the ending this book had I would have liked to have more of the book dedicated to this.

I feel like the issues that were never touched upon or mentioned at all in the musical are done so much better in the book. It gives the reader an even closer look into how complicated both Connor and Evan’s lives are and how fateful it was that their lives intertwined at the moment that they did.

The novel is written in first person, so you get to know Evan’s character well. You also only see everyone else through Evan’s lens which doesn’t given the other characters a lot of development. I still enjoyed all the characters in this book and what they all bring to the story.

Something else I enjoyed about this book was how the original lyrics to more of the Broadway tracked are incorporated into the dialogues. Little bits of the songs can be found throughout the book which made It even more special to me. If you are a fan of Dear Evan Hansen, you will love that the original aspects to the musical are in the book with more added scenes and characters which makes it extremely wholesome.

I did go into reading this book a fan of the musical and knowing what happens throughout the story, but you can also read this book having no knowledge at all of the musical. A few parts of the book and plot might seem a little confusing, but if this happens I urge you to finish the book because the ending is life changing. Then listen to the Broadway recording.

The way this book tackles the issue of mental health is amazing and I cannot recommend this book enough for the way it discusses the issue of mental health.

This book is excellent, and I enjoyed reading it. It is a quick-paced fast read that covers so many issues teenagers deal with on a day-to-day basis. I cannot recommend it enough.