Dear Evan Hansen: The Novel by Val Emmich | Book Review #3

written with Steven Levenson. Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul

RATING

3.5/5 stars. Liked it, but the writing style wasn't one of my favorites.

CONTENT WARNINGS

Suicide and depression, mentions of overdosing, drugs

SUMMARY

When a letter that was never meant to be seen 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 has to pretend that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend.

Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore - even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents have taken him in like he's their own, desperate to know more bout their enigmatic son from his "closest friend." As Evan gets pulled deeper into the family's swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he's doing can't be right, but if he's helping people, how wrong can it be?

No loner incapacitated by anxiety or hiding from the disappointment in his mother's eyes, this new Evan has a purpose. And confidence. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling, and he comes face-to-face with his greatest obstacle: himself.

REVIEW

I will be rating this on the book stand-alone, not based on the musical at all. That's all on my Tumblr page.

I found this pretty enjoyable. Evan perfectly represented the narcissistic side of anxiety, and his thoughts definitely had a sense of humor into it. Evan wasn't really a likeable character - his intentions seemed in the wrong place at times, but he has a charm to him that will allow you to root for him. 

Connor's chapters had a haunting sadness to it, his regrets but also how he doesn't always seem to miss many people, and his anger preventing him from any type of grieving. His insights on his family by watching over them did give a good glance at how dysfunctional the Murphy family was, and how they sometimes get too proud to show their feelings.

The mention of Jared - a Jewish character - laughing over the Holocaust gave insight of the awkwardness that minorities face when talking about oppression in school. I've felt the awkward glances when talking about the Chinese Exclusion Act, so I can somewhat imagine what it was like for him to sit through an entire lesson on the horrible oppression of his people. I also appreciated the jokes he made about his Jewish backgrounds ("You can be the treasurer" "My parents would like that"), showing others how really, a lot of minorities - myself included - make jokes over our backgrounds.

I liked the dynamics between Evan and the Murphy family, and how he truly just wanted to be noticed, to be loved - by both Zoe romantically and the Murphy's as a family - and how, when you break it down, he's a lonely kid who believes nobody loved him at all, especially his mother. The darkness of his father's leaving seemed to be pronounced, especially with that being a key factor in Evan's actions. Evan also didn't seem to realize that his mother really was there for him, and that she tried her best to keep up with his life, even with it being impossibly hard sometimes.

100% recommend this book. It kept me up for hours reading it (I got it the day it came out), and it was a very enjoyable read.