Rating: 4/5
Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich, Justin Paul, Steven Levenson and Benj Pasek
Spoiler Free Review!
For some of you, the name Dear Evan Hansen will have rung alarm bells in your head - or rather, cued the overture to start as the theatre starts to hush. Yes, that's right, the beloved musical 'Dear Evan Hansen' is available in book form.
I'm sure you all know this as I'm nearly two years late to the party but, unusually when it comes to the order of creation, the book was written after the incredibly popular musical debuted on Broadway. Personally, I love when stage musicals are available in a different format; you can listen to a soundtrack a thousand times but you're not going to understand the full story through the songs alone. There are moments that are missing, pieces of the story that don't fit quite right. Sometimes you'll never know what you've missed until you see the show itself.
But shows are expensive. Dear Evan Hansen is definitely a show I'd love to see one day but if, like me, there isn't a show near you or you can't afford it or any other reason you can't see the stage show, I highly recommend you read this book!
The soundtrack is integrated into the storytelling so brilliantly that you always know exactly which song fits with which section (bonus points if you play the song whilst reading the book!). Not only can you tell where the soundtrack fits in, but you can hear it too! At least, when you listen to the audiobook you can hear it, otherwise I'd guess you would just have to recognise the lyrics from the page...hadn't thought about that until I started writing.
Another bonus of the audiobook? Mike Faist narrates Connor's sections! Because yes, Connor has his own sections. This came as a surprise surprising to me but it really adds to the story. I'd wondered for a while how prominent Connor would be; he seemed to be a primary character because the actor playing him always appeared in interviews or performances, but I was also very aware that Connor dies early in the musical. Turns out he's super important; Connor's narration added so much to the story that the soundtrack never could have told me.
Whilst the majority of the book is told from Evan's point of view, having Connor jump in every so often showed the stark similarities between the boys, highlighting the tragic elements of the story even more than the poignant soundtrack does.
And oh my gosh is this book tragic. I like a sad book. In fact, having a good cry to a sad narrative is up there with some of my favourite things about fiction. But I think I cried or was close to crying through about 70% of this book.
Evan, Connor, Jared, Alana, and even Zoe all experience such loneliness at times. It's truly heartbreaking that none of them have the language to reach out or the ability to see that they're all in the same boat. All I could think about was the potential they had; the potential to be friends, the potential to be great.
I guess that's why this show resonates with people. It's that line, "On the outside always looking in". I think everyone can relate to that feeling at some point in their lives. Whilst I was reading Dear Evan Hansen I got quite angry with a lot of the characters. We discover Connor had a life that none of them really saw, and yet so many people were willing to lie abotu how well they knew him. I was disgusted with Evan, Jared, and Alana for taking advantage of the situation. The Murphys had lost their son and these three kids lied to their faces repeatedly.
Having stepped away from the book for a while, I have more sympathy for all the characters than I had at the time of reading. The loneliness that is right at the heart of this story has made me view them with a little more empathy than I thought I would at first. What they did was wrong and I'm still not sure I like Evan (great character, but I don't like him as a person), yet the tragedy of his story and the similarity between Evan and Connor meant I could view the events with a little more understanding.
Dear Evan Hansen reminds us that everyone has their own story, something beyond what we know of them. And it does so in the most heart wrenching way.
Now I've just got to find a way to see the show!
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