Review – Dear Evan Hansen

Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich, Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul
Narrated by Ben Levi Ross, Mike Faist, and Mallory Bechtel
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers / Hachette Audio
Publication Date: October 9, 2018
Date Read: February 13, 2019
Length: 368 pages / 8 hours 8 minutes
Source: NetGalley / Library
★★★☆☆

From the show’s creators comes the groundbreaking novel inspired by the Broadway smash hit Dear Evan Hansen.

Dear Evan Hansen,


Today’s going to be an amazing day and here’s why…

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, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, 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, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their 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 longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He’s confident. He’s a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and he comes face to face with his greatest obstacle: himself.

A simple lie leads to complicated truths in this big-hearted coming-of-age story of grief, authenticity and the struggle to belong in an age of instant connectivity and profound isolation.

Amazon | Audible | BAM! | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | Kobo

I didn’t love this one like I had hoped I would.  To be fair, I am not the target audience for this book.  I have never seen the musical or heard any of its songs so I was pretty clueless going in.  I can’t tell you how this book compares to the musical but this story does stand on its own.  Maybe a younger audience will enjoy this one more than I did but I spent a large part of the book wanted to pull these kids to the side and give them a mom talk.  It was a pretty easy read and I am glad I gave it a try.

It all starts with a letter.  Evan doesn’t have really any friends and has a hard time getting through each day.  As a part of therapy, he writes letters to himself to put things in a positive outlook.  Connor picks up the letter and takes it from Evan.  He dies with that letter in his pocket and suddenly everyone thinks that Connor and Evan were great friends and everything grows from there.

One of my biggest pet peeves is lying of any kind.  Unfortunately, this book is packed with lies.  Instead of letting Connor’s parents know the truth behind the letter he lets them think that he was really friends with Connor.  He then proceeds to expand on that lie and becomes a big part of Connor’s family’s life.  He even starts dating Connor’s sister who he has had a crush on for a very long time.  Almost everything that Evan does in this book is a lie or is tied to a lie and I have to tell you that I had some issues with it.  I just felt like Connor’s family had enough to deal with without being manipulated by Evan.

There were some things that I did like in this book.  I liked that the story is told from two different points of view.  I expected Evan’s point of view but the second one was a bit of a surprise.  The point of view that I didn’t expect was really my favorite part of the book.  I thought that those sections of the book were very well done.

I listened to this book and I thought that the narrators did a good job with it.  The female narrator listed did a couple of song segments worked into the story and the males handled the two points of view.  I thought that they both did a great job representing their character.  Their voices were very pleasant to listen to for long periods of time.  I think that I liked the story a bit more because I decided to listen to the audiobook.

I think that a lot of readers are going to like this book a lot more than I did.  The book does touch on a lot of important issues but I couldn’t get past all of the deceptions.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers via NetGalley and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library via Overdrive.

About the Author

Val Emmich is a writer, singer-songwriter, and actor. He has had recurring roles on Vinyl and Ugly Betty as well as a memorable guest role as Liz Lemon’s coffee-boy fling, Jamie, on 30 Rock. His debut novel, The Reminders, was a B&N Discover selection that Library Journal called “quirky, touching and addictive.”

Steven Levenson is the Tony Award-winning playwright of Dear Evan Hansen. Other plays include Days of Rage, If I Forget, The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin, and The Language of Trees. In television, he worked for three seasons as a writer and producer on Showtime’s Masters of Sex. Upcoming projects include the limited series Fosse/Verdon (FX) and the film adaptation of Jonathan Larson’s tick, tick…boom!

Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are the Oscar®, Grammy, Tony, and Golden Globe-winning songwriting team behind the Broadway musicals Dear Evan Hansen and A Christmas Story, The Musical. Their film projects include: The Greatest Showman, La La Land and Trolls, as well as the upcoming live action musicals Snow White and Aladdin and original animated musical Foster.

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